The Obama administration said it would propose the first-ever regulations on methane emissions from the oil and gas sector Wednesday with an aim of slashing emissions at least 40 percent compared with 2012 levels by 2025.
The regulations would affect new and modified oil and gas hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — wells, though administration officials said they ultimately will need to address emissions from existing wells to hit the emissions reduction target. The Environmental Protection Agency will formally propose the regulations this summer and finalize them in 2016.
“In the goal that we’re setting we are making clear that we need to get reductions from existing sources,” Dan Utech, Obama’s top climate and energy adviser, said in a media call. He said it was too early to conduct a cost-benefit analysis on the plan.
Environmentalists said regulations were needed to meet President Obama’s climate change goal of curbing emissions 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. But they pressed the White House to pursue rules for existing sources, noting they’re concerned that “fugitive” emissions leaked during fracking and through leaky pipelines would erase the climate benefits of burning natural gas in electricity generation compared with coal.
“Meeting the administration’s reduction goal, however, will require EPA to curb methane pollution from all existing oil and gas operations across the nation, not just those in some parts of the country,” said Natural Resources Defense Council President Rhea Suh.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat at a rate 25 times greater than carbon dioxide. Accounting for nearly 10 percent of United States emissions, it’s the largest unregulated greenhouse gas in the country. Of that total, 30 percent of emissions come from the oil and gas sector, the White House said.
The regulations would include standards on five components of fracking wells, and extending volatile organic compound regulations — which are already in place on natural gas wells — to oil and gas wells in areas that contain a higher than permitted amount of ozone in the atmosphere. The administration also intends to address emissions from other parts of the natural gas distribution system, such as compressing units that compact natural gas and push the fuel through pipelines.
The Interior Department also will propose a rule to reduce “venting” and “flaring” of excess natural gas produced on federal land.
The oil and gas industry had fought direct regulation of methane, saying voluntary measures to reduce leaks in fracking wells were effective, noting emissions from natural gas wells had declined 73 percent since 2011. The White House, however, said emissions were projected to rise 25 percent by 2025 if left unchecked.
New regulations threaten to shut in energy development by raising costs on producers, said American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard.
“Emissions will continue to fall as operators innovate and find new ways to capture and deliver more methane to consumers, and existing EPA and state regulations are working. Another layer of burdensome requirements could actually slow down industry progress to reduce methane emissions,” Gerard said.
Janet McCabe, the EPA’s air and radiation chief, said that the administration won’t “rely on regulation alone.” The administration strategy also calls for undertaking collaborative efforts with electric utilities to repair leaking and oil pipelines that deliver natural gas to customers.
“The details of all of this will become more clear as we move through the rule-making process,” she said.
