METHANE EMISSION RULES PUT ON HOLD
Twin Obama-era regulations would limit release of gas produced through operations in oil fields
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is delaying two Obama-era regulations aimed at restricting harmful methane emissions from oil and gas production.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is seeking a two-year delay for oil and gas companies to follow a new rule requiring them to monitor and reduce methane leaks. The delay follows a 90-day pause ordered earlier this year.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency is reconsidering the 2016 rule, which he said may duplicate state rules that can achieve equivalent or better results in reducing methane emissions.
Meanwhile, the Interior Department is indefinitely postponing a separate regulation intended to reduce the amount of heat-trapping methane released into the atmosphere from oil and gas wells on federal lands.
A bid to overturn the rule failed unexpectedly in the Republican-led Senate last month.
The rule “is expected to have real and harmful impacts on onshore energy development and could impact state and local jobs and revenue,” said Katharine MacGregor, acting assistant Interior secretary for land and minerals, adding that states such as North Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico “could be hit the hardest.”
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade association representing more than 300 companies, praised the moves.
“Both rules vastly exceeded federal authority,” she said in a statement. “The Trump administration is correcting that overreach from the prior administration, thereby saving jobs and supporting American energy independence.”
She said that, regardless, the industry will “continue to increase methane capture rates as it has for the past three decades” through better technology and improved drilling techniques.
Delaying the standards will increase smog and other dangerous air pollution, with irreversible harm to public health and the environment, said Mark Brownstein, vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
“The oil and gas industry tell us natural gas is a clean, low-carbon fuel, but industry lobbyists and lawyers then argue to remove the protections necessary to deliver on that claim,” he said, adding that the Trump administration appears “only too happy to throw common sense out the window” to serve corporate interests.