Agencies delay rules on methane emissions
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 from their facilities. 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 heattrapping 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, prompting Interior officials to promise to suspend, revise or rescind the rule.
Katharine MacGregor, acting assistant Interior secretary for land and minerals, said the methane rule imposes a “significant regulatory burden that encumbers American energy production, economic growth and job creation.”
In another development, the Energy Department is closing an office that works with other countries to develop clean energy technology, another sign of the Trump administration’s retreat on climate-related activities after its withdrawal from the Paris agreement this month.
The 11 staff members of the Office of International Climate and Technology were told this month that their positions were being eliminated, according to current and former agency employees.
The office was formed in 2010 to help the United States provide technical advice to other nations seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.