EPA scraps methane emission limits

The Environmental Protection Agency has rolled back limits on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry introduced during the Obama era.

Timothy Gardner had the news for Reuters:

The Trump administration on Thursday proposed rescinding Obama-era limits on oil and gas industry emissions of methane, one of the main pollutants scientists link to climate change, a move that drew backlash from environmentalists and institutional investors.

The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, estimated that easing a 2016 regulation targeting methane emissions from oil and gas wells, pipelines and storage would save energy companies up to $123 million through 2025. The plan will undergo a period of public comment before being finalized, and environmental groups pledged court action to try to block repeal of the limits.

Madeleine Carlisle from Time magazine provided background:

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is produced both naturally and by a range of industrial and human activities, explains Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Penn State.

He says the degree of methane that’s produced by natural sources — like swamps or sheep or cows — is usually “more or less balanced,” because the natural methane that’s produced oxidizes in the atmosphere and breaks down.

But over the past decade, Mann says the amount of methane in the atmosphere has increased. According to NASA, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere has risen by about 25 teragrams per year since 2006.

A 2016 study found that methane levels were reaching the highest levels in at least two decades.

“We’re upsetting the balance now, it’s increasing,” he explains. “We’re adding methane to the atmosphere faster than those processes can take it out.”

Mann says that the two primary contributors to the “pretty dramatic uptick” of methane in the atmosphere have been hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — and the increasing amount of livestock-raised dairy and meat consumption.

NPR’s Merrit Kennedy reported:

Environmental groups are alarmed. “This would be a huge step backward,” said Ben Ratner, a senior director at the Environmental Defense Fund. “It would cause greatly increased pollution and a big missed opportunity to take cost effective immediate action to reduce the rate of warming right now.”

The Trump administration argues it would save the oil and gas industry $17 million to $19 million annually in compliance costs. But that’s “such a small fraction of the industry total cash flow that it’s just laughable,” says Harvard University’s Steven Wofsy, a professor of atmospheric and environmental science.

The Trump administration also says it does not anticipate an increase in the level of methane emissions if the proposal is implemented — but scientists disagree with that assumption.