Interior eases rules on curbing methane leaks

WASHINGTON» In the fourth rollback of a major federal climate rule in fewer than two months, the Interior Department eased requirements Tuesday that oil and gas firms operating on federal land capture the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Officials said the rule, adopted in 2016, was duplicative given state laws and imposed too heavy a burden on the private sector. Environmentalists and Democrats vowed to fight the reversal in court, saying that it would lead to greater air pollution and boost emis sions linked to climate change.

Within hours of the announcement, attorneys general for California and New Mexico filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to reinstate the 2016 rule.

“We’ve sued the administration before over the illegal delay and suspension of this rule and will continue doing everything in our power to hold them accountable to our people and planet,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

The 2016 regulation required operators to capture methane leaks, install more

modern controls and develop a plan to reduce the release of the powerful heattrapping gas.

The new rule largely eliminates those requirements, which experts said would have prevented the release of nearly 180,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere each year.

Kate MacGregor, deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of the Interior, said the cost of meeting the previous requirements could have forced operators of marginal wells out of business. They account for 73 percent of leases on Bureau of Land Management property.

“We wanted to ensure these reserves are not being abandoned in the ground due to high compliance costs,” she said.

The question of how to curb accidental leaks and the venting and flaring of methane from oil and gas operations has sparked an intense political and legal fight since President Donald Trump took office. Methane leaks account for 1.4 to 2.3 percent of America’s overall natural gas output, according to government and independent studies.

According to the Interior’s analysis, the reduction in compliance costs would outweigh the royalties taxpayers would have received on the captured oil and gas, producing a net savings of $734 million to $1.01 billion over a decade.

Critics of the move, including Democratic Sens. Tom Udall, of New Mexico and Michael Bennet of Colorado, questioned why the administration would reverse a regulation that generated taxpayer revenue and enjoyed significant public support. Udall said 98 percent of the 600,000 comments the Bureau of Land Management received opposed the rule’s repeal.