The Trump administration proposed Tuesday to weaken a 2016 Obama-era regulation targeting venting and flaring, or burning, of methane from oil and gas operations on federal lands.
The Interior Department’s water-downed final replacement proposal is the second move in two weeks by the Trump administration to soften oversight of methane leaks from oil and gas operations, after industry groups had complained about the cost of complying.
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed relaxing a similar 2016 rule by allowing companies to reduce how often they have to inspect and fix wells and pipelines that leak methane.
The Interior Department proposal, by contrast, is focused on oil and gas operations on federal land.
The Obama administration’s “venting and flaring rule” required oil and gas companies to use a host of new technologies to cut methane flaring, and forced them to replace old equipment and maintain a robust inspection regime for methane leaks. The Obama version of the rule, which was never implemented because it was challenged in court, also put in place a new royalty program to collect fees from drillers, by encouraging companies to sell excess gas that they would otherwise burn, or flare, a process that can produce methane emissions.
Republicans had tried last year to repeal the rule through Congress using the Congressional Review Act. But they failed when the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona voted with Democrats to oppose repealing the Obama-era rule, forcing the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management to go through a long regulatory process to gut most of the regulation.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, quickly sued the Interior Department in federal court on Tuesday for rolling back the methane rule.
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, also a Democrat, joined California in filing the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
“With this attempt to ax the Waste Prevention Rule, the Trump Administration risks the air our children breathe and at taxpayers’ expense,” Becerra said. “We’ve sued the administration before over the illegal delay and suspension of this rule, and will continue doing everything in our power to hold them accountable to our people and planet.”
Methane, the main component in natural gas, is more potent than carbon dioxide because it traps more heat, although its greenhouse gas emissions are relatively short-lived in the atmosphere. Methane represents about 9 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Natural gas’s replacement of coal as America’s most-used electricity source is responsible for most of the decline in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions over the last few decades.
The Obama administration, and even large oil and gas companies, have argued the natural gas industry must better contain methane leaks to stay relevant in the future as cleaner renewables become a more and more prominent energy source.
Matt Watson, who studies oil and gas operations at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the Trump administration’s weakening of regulations will help smaller companies that are less interested, and able, to contain methane leaks.
“You’ve got a set of large companies that understand their long term viability depends on getting a handle on the massive methane problem,” Watson told the Washington Examiner. “They understand the role of natural gas in a competitive lower carbon future depends entirely on their ability to tackle the methane problem. In the meantime, the Trump administration is catering to the worst performers in the industry, implementing plans to please the lowest common denominator.”
Industry groups, however, contend that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management has no authority to regulate methane emissions, and say the Obama rule was duplicative with EPA and state regulations.
“Industry has a four-decade long success record in reducing methane emissions without federal regulation,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas companies on federal lands. “We will continue to do that. The best way to reduce methane emissions is through technological innovation, not through red tape.”
A study this summer published in the journal Science, however, found that methane leaks are a bigger problem than federal agencies say it is. The study found oil and gas operations have a methane leak rate of 2.3 percent, compared with the EPA’s estimate of 1.4 percent figure.
While leaks are infrequent, companies have an economic incentive to plug them. The industry prefers to participate in voluntary initiatives to limit methane leaks, however, instead of federal regulation that companies consider expensive and time-consuming. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that 75 percent of methane emissions can be eliminated, half at no cost.
Some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, including BP, Exxon, Shell, and Total, are signatories to a pledge to reduce emissions called Methane Guiding Principles, although the initiative does not include binding targets.
