GOP Fails to Kill Methane Rule in a Capitol Hill Defeat for Oil and Gas Industry

The rule limits venting and flaring gas, a move the Obama administration estimated would prevent 180,000 tons of methane from leaking into the atmosphere every year.

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bid to overturn an Obama-era rule that limits climate-warming methane leaks from oil and gas operations on public lands, but the industry, along with its allies in Congress, says it will continue challenging the rule. 

The surprise 49-51 vote handed a defeat to the industry, which has pushed Congress to undo the rule under the Congressional Review Act, a little-used law that allows lawmakers to kill rules with a simple majority vote.  

The rule, issued by the Department of the Interior at the end of the Obama administration, limits venting and flaring of methane from natural gas and oil drilling operations, a restriction that officials estimated would prevent 180,000 tons of methane from leaking into the atmosphere every year.  Methane, the main component of natural gas, has over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.  

Cutting methane emissions was a key element of Obama's plan for meeting the U.S. commitment under the Paris climate agreement, and many experts view methane cuts as an especially efficient way to reduce emissions in the short term.  Proponents of the rule also point out that the methane that escapes during the flaring and venting process could power more than 6 million homes.

"The rule is so basic.  All it's asking for is for oil and gas companies to capture their methane waste, which is now going up into the atmosphere as carbon pollution, and really potent carbon pollution at that, and put it back into their pipes and, potentially, back into the market," said Lena Moffitt, who directs the Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuel campaign.  "It's just asking them to plug their leaks."

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