The Obama administration is planning to roll out regulations governing oil and gas sector emissions of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, as early as this week in an effort to curb climate change, according to a report.
The EPA wouldn’t confirm the New York Times report on the White House strategy for controlling methane, which accounts for 9 percent of U.S. emissions and is 25 times stronger a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The report said the administration aims to reduce oil and gas-sector methane emissions 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025.
“We have nothing to confirm at this point,” EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia told the Washington Examiner.
Methane is the largest unregulated greenhouse gas in the U.S. The Obama administration has been working on an inter-agency plan for reducing methane since March 2014 and has released five technical papers addressing emissions from various components of hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — wells that the White House could decide to regulate.
Environmental groups say the administration must attempt to control the gas to have a shot at reducing emissions at least 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 as President Obama agreed to do in a non-binding pact with China to slow global warming. The groups say they are concerned about “fugitive” emissions leaking during fracking, as scientists say a 3 percent leakage rate could erase the climate benefits of using natural gas in electricity compared with coal.
While the EPA hasn’t publicly committed to regulations, the oil and gas industry is fighting the possibility that the agency will call for the direct regulation of methane emissions for the first time.
Industry groups contend that other methods the EPA already employs — such as regulating “volatile organic compounds” through what is known as “green completions” — have the effect of reducing methane emissions. They also have maintained that they have an incentive to capture as much methane as possible, since any gas that escapes during fracking can’t be sold.
Howard Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs with the American Petroleum Institute, told the Examiner. “We think that with the tools they have at their disposal in terms of regulating [volatile organic compounds],” the EPA has measures “more than adequate to accomplish what they’re looking for.”
Little is clear about what the administration might require, and Feldman said whatever the administration announces in the next week or two is expected to be a “blueprint” rather than a declaration of specific actions.
Matt Kellogg, tax and environmental counsel with the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said the final plan could include proposals from the EPA, along with an Interior Department rule on “venting” and “flaring” excess natural gas at wells on federal lands, Transportation Department standards for improving safety valves for pipelines serving multi-unit dwellings, and an ongoing Energy Department assessment of energy infrastructure.
All those agencies being involved makes it hard to predict exactly where the administration is headed, Feldman said.
“We just don’t know where their thinking is, and this is complex because the announcement is likely to come out of the administration,” Feldman said. “So even if you thought you knew what the EPA was thinking and you thought you knew what the administration was thinking, it’s the juncture of those two that make this complicated.”
Industry sources said they have heard the administration is preparing to extend requirements for natural gas fracking wells aimed at reducing those volatile organic compounds to oil wells. Industry groups, for the most part, are fine with that, and note that those regulations and industry improvements have slashed methane emissions from natural gas fracking wells 73 percent since 2011, according to the EPA.
America’s Natural Gas Alliance CEO Marty Durbin told EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that extending green completions to oil wells were fine, but that expanding the standards should be part of a “cooperative effort,” spokesman Dan Whitten told the Examiner.
“We’ve already made significant reductions under existing regulations and through our own innovations, and that will continue. So the administration has an opportunity to work cooperatively with the industry to achieve a shared goal rather than initiate yet another rule-making process that adds uncertainty on both timing and substance,” he said.
But mandatory action beyond green completions still appears to be in play, said Sarah Uhl, senior program director on methane with the Clean Air Task Force.
“Last we heard from EPA, mandatory standards beyond green completion requirements for oil wells were very much on the table,” she told the Examiner.
Industry organizations say they’re concerned about the EPA handing down a prescriptive approach to managing emissions from different parts on a fracking well. Further down the production stream, pipeline owners and electric utilities are wary of a program that would force replacement of old, leaky natural gas pipelines, which could prove expensive.
Cathy Landry, a spokeswoman with pipeline group the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, told the Examiner that she heard requirements for her group’s companies would be voluntary, but “with teeth.” But that’s just guesswork, she and several sources noted.
“It’s really rumor mill at this point,” Kellogg said.
