The Environmental Protection Agency announced revisions to its proposed methane rule in order to more aggressively regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas from oil and gas sources.
EPA’s supplemental proposal, released Friday, builds on an initial proposed rule announced last November that would apply to new well sites and also regulate “existing” well sites for the first time.
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HOW WILL THE EU’S COMING RESTRICTION ON RUSSIAN OIL AFFECT GLOBAL PRICES
Methane is the main component in natural gas and has exponentially more warming potential than carbon dioxide when released into the atmosphere.
The supplement put out Friday includes new requirements for regular monitoring of sites for “fugitive emissions,” or leaks, and it would base monitoring requirements on the amount and types of equipment at a site, rather than on estimated emissions — a change from the earlier proposal.
It also includes new requirements for owners or operators to route “associated gas,” gas accompanying petroleum deposits, to a sales line, or otherwise make use of the fuel rather than flare it, which means to burn it off.
Proponents of new methane regulations have made the case that capturing gas that would be otherwise leaked or flared is good for the environment but also serves the interests of consumers and operators themselves because the escaping natural gas is inherently valuable.
“These are really cost-effective controls. All of these conserve gas,” Darin Schroeder, an associate attorney with the Clean Air Task Force, told the Washington Examiner.
“[Operators] can compress it and truck it off,” if there are no proximate pipelines, he said. “There are other ways to either utilize the gas or send it to market. What EPA is saying now is you have to take advantage of those techniques.”
Typically, the main reason operators flare gas is because they don’t have the equipment in place to capture it or get it to a pipeline.
Many large operators have favored the additional regulation of methane emissions, although some smaller operators with fewer resources have opposed it.
Anne Bradbury of the American Exploration and Production Council, which represents large independent oil and gas operators, said EPA adopted some of the group’s recommendations for changes to its November 2021 proposal.
“We still have concerns that should be addressed to make key provisions truly workable, but we will continue to work with EPA on meaningful solutions,” Bradbury said of the supplemental proposal.
EPA estimates the climate benefits of the rule, calculated based on estimates of the social cost of methane, to be $48 billion between 2023 and 2035. Compliance over the same period is estimated to cost $19 billion to the industry.
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The announcement coincides with President Joe Biden’s attendance at the United Nations climate change conference, known as “COP27,” on Friday.
The administration announced its initial proposal last November to coincide with the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.
