White House Announces Plan to Slash Industry's Methane Emissions

In President Obama’s latest move using executive authority to tackle climate change, administration officials announced Wednesday plans to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.  The administration’s goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025 from the levels recorded in 2012.

The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan. The White House declined to comment on the effort.

Environmental advocates have long urged the Obama administration to target methane emissions, and the rules would be the first to do so.  Most of the planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution in the United States comes from carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning coal, oil and natural gas.  Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.

“This is the biggest opportunity to curb climate change pollution that they haven’t already seized,” said David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group.
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Methane emissions from oil and gas drilling and production and transmission systems are projected to increase because of the breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing technology that have led to an energy boom.  A 2014 study published last year in the journal Science found that methane is leaking from oil and natural gas drilling sites and pipelines at rates 50 percent higher than previously thought.

Mr. Obama’s new regulations will be designed to curb methane leaks from oil and gas wells, pipelines and valves — the entire fossil fuel drilling, production and transportation system.

Initially, they will apply only to new and modified oil and gas systems, but eventually, the E.P.A. is expected to issue regulations on existing systems.

The Interior Department is also expected to propose standards this spring that would reduce methane leaks from oil and gas wells on federal land.

The methane announcement will coincide with a series of climate change moves from the administration this summer.  The Environmental Protection Agency has said that it will also release final regulations on power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions.

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