The Obama administration will delay a long-awaited announcement on plans to reduce emissions of a potent greenhouse gas until at least January, an Environmental Protection Agency official told the Washington Examiner.
Federal agencies spanning the EPA and Energy, Interior and Transportation departments have been working on a broad plan addressing methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. When the White House announced the move in March, it said any new regulations or suggestions to manage the emissions from the oil and gas sector would come in the fall.
“We’re going to hold until after the holidays,” the EPA official said in an email.
Methane is the largest unregulated greenhouse gas emission in the United States, accounting for 9 percent of total emissions.
The plan involves several agencies and would go beyond the oil and gas production sector by including infrastructure such as pipelines that bring natural gas to homes.
Given the expansive effort, it’s possible the White House wants to tie the EPA announcement into coming Interior and Transportation methane rules, said Matt Kellogg, manager of government affairs with the Independent Petroleum Association of America. The Energy Department also is putting the finishing touches on a comprehensive review of the nation’s energy infrastructure, which is due at the end of January.
“My sense is that they’re probably going to sync the EPA actions” with other agencies, he told the Examiner. The Bureau of Land Management is due to release a proposed rule next year that would reduce “venting” or burning — known as “flaring” — excess natural gas produced by wells on federal lands. The Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will decide next year whether to require safety valves on new and renewed natural gas pipelines that serve buildings other than single-family homes.
Environmental groups are particularly concerned about preventing methane leaks during the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process that they say could erase the climate benefits of using natural gas in electricity generation rather than coal. But the oil and gas industry says studies show leaks are lower than the 3 percent rate that scientists say would jeopardize natural gas’ climate advantage.
Many in the oil and gas industry expect the administration’s overall strategy will include extending requirements for capturing smog-forming pollutants known as volatile organic compounds at oil wells. Natural gas wells must have technology to control those pollutants by January under a rule the EPA issued in 2012.
“That would be something we could look at,” said Howard Feldman, director of scientific and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute. “That doesn’t mean we’re endorsing it, we haven’t seen anything.”
Little else about the EPA’s direction is known. Agency officials have consistently said they’re looking into voluntary approaches to capture methane, though how that would work is not clear.
“They’ve been pretty tight-lipped about this,” said David Goldston, director of government affairs with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We weren’t getting any information.”
