Trump EPA Eliminates Methane Limits On Oil And Gas Industry Over The Objections Of The Oil And Gas Industry, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That Deregulation Was Being Held Up By A Lack Of Anyone Requesting It
WASHINGTON. The Environmental Protection Agency finalized two rules Thursday eliminating the requirement that oil and gas companies monitor and repair methane leaks from their wells, pipelines, and compressor stations, resolving a long-standing concern that the industry was being asked to notice when its product escaped into the atmosphere.
The action, signed by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, fully rescinds the methane standards the agency adopted in 2016 and removes the transmission and storage segment of the industry from federal air pollution oversight entirely. Companies previously obligated to inspect equipment for leaks will now be free to allow that equipment to leak without the administrative burden of confirming that it does. The EPA estimated the change would save the industry as much as $19 million a year, a figure it presented as a benefit rather than as a description of pollution controls no longer being purchased.
Officials acknowledged one complication: the oil and gas industry had asked them not to do it. BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and ExxonMobil, three of the largest producers subject to the rule, had publicly urged the administration to keep the methane standards in place, citing both the climate and the awkwardness of lobbying against their own deregulation. "We looked at the situation carefully, and we determined that the companies did not know what they wanted," said one source within the administration, who explained that the rollback would proceed on behalf of a constituency that had declined to request it. "Sometimes leadership means cutting a regulation that nobody is standing outside the building asking you to cut."
Methane is a greenhouse gas roughly 80 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, a property that EPA officials confirmed would continue. The Environmental Defense Fund estimated the rollback would allow an additional 4.5 million metric tons of methane to enter the atmosphere each year, emissions the administration characterized as previously preventable and now simply present. Agency officials noted that the gas, once released, requires no further monitoring, paperwork, or federal involvement of any kind.
Administration sources framed the timing, roughly 80 days before the 2020 election, as unrelated to the campaign, and described the rule as the fulfillment of a promise to reduce the number of things the federal government keeps track of. "The President believes American energy should be unleashed, and you cannot unleash something while also measuring it," said one official, who added that the leaks would now occur in an atmosphere of regulatory certainty.
At press time, the EPA had confirmed that the methane already in the air remained the responsibility of no one.