Energy
EPA Moves To Cut Methane Emissions — But What Will It Accomplish?
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President Barack Obama, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in tow, announced Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will now move to squelch methane emissions from existing oil and gas facilities.
The new rule allows the U.S. and Canada to slash methane emissions from fossil fuels between 40 percent and 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025.
Critics consider the new rule, as well as any rule limiting methane emissions from fossil fuels, a futile effort at choking out a gas that contributes little to so-called man-made global warming.
Methane emissions constitute only 10 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA.
And Steve Everley, a spokesperson with Energy In Depth (EID), noted on the EID website that total greenhouse gas emissions in 2013 were about 6,811.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Methane emissions from oil and other fossil fuels, therefore, account for slightly more than three percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Everley’s calculations show the rule will eventually shave 0.004 degrees Celsius off global warming by 2100.
And now, the U.S.’s top environmental regulator will begin crafting a new set of environmental regulations for older wells.
The agency also plans on drafting requirements for companies to provide information about the kinds of technology and storage facilities oil companies’ use in capturing methane emissions, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said Thursday.
McCarthy, for her part, admitted in February that the agency does not know much about the methane industry — despite their ignorance on the subject, regulators have a narrow learning curve when it comes to the methane industry.
“My caveat is that EPA’s learning this industry right now because it’s not an industry we regulate,” McCarthy told audience members at the CERA Week conference Feb. 26.
She added: “We’ve just gotten into regulation of this so there’s a lot of hundreds of thousands of small sources and EPA doesn’t generally have a relationship with this industry as we do other sectors that we’ve regulated for frankly decades. But we’re learning.”
Meanwhile, the White House championed the deal hashed out by Obama and Trudeau.
“The two leaders regard the Paris Agreement as a turning point in global efforts to combat climate change and anchor economic growth in clean development,” the White House said in a statement. “They resolve that the United States and Canada must and will play a leadership role internationally in the low carbon global economy over the coming decades.”
The EPA’s calculations, as well as those made by Everley, have not dissuaded environmentalists from wishing for more emissions regulations.
“No credible plan to combat climate change can ignore methane emissions, which are the second largest industrial source of climate-changing pollution after power plants,” David Doniger, a director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted in a press statement.
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