Obama raises ante on wells
EPA’s plan would expand methane emission limits
WASHINGTON — The White House’s move Thursday to expand methane emission limits to all oil and natural gas wells upped the stakes in the administration’s campaign to fight climate change.
Building on already pending rules to cut methane leaks from both new oil and gas wells and those on federal lands, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now plans to bring to the oil sector the tough emissions standards it previously applied to automobiles and power plants.
The change would bring federal pollution rules in line with President Barack Obama’s earlier stated promise to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas drilling at least 40 percent by 2025, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said.
“Based on this growing body of science, it’s become clear it’s come time for EPA to take additional action,” she said in a news conference Thursday. “We’ll start this work immediately, and we intend to work quickly.”
The EPA said it was only just beginning to put a rule together and would be reaching out to oil and gas companies next month to request emissions data, to get a better handle on the scale of the problem and the costs of fixing it.
But based on the methane rules, already pending, hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells across Texas and the country are likely to be required to invest in technology like infrared cameras and methane sensors to seek out and repair natural gas leaks in their pipelines and storage tanks.
Methane, the principal
component of natural gas, is believed to have an effect on the atmosphere more than 25 times that of carbon.
Industry representatives quickly piled on the rule as overly costly and likely to hurt the shale drilling boom, which turned around U.S. oil and gas production after decades of decline.
A recent study commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund puts the cost of reaching Obama’s goal at 1 cent per Mcf of natural gas — less than 1 percent at current prices — when factoring in current lost revenues from escaping natural gas.
Oil industry reaction
But in a conference call with reporters Thursday, Kyle Isakower, vice president of regulatory and economic policy at the American Petroleum Institute, said costs were likely to be far higher.
He said the industry would need to see the final rule before deciding whether to take legal action, as states and coal producers have done over Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
“We’re keeping all our options on the table,” Isakower said. “The administration is catering to environmental extremists at the expense of American consumers.”
The methane announcement came as part of a larger joint agreement with Canada on climate change, curbing methane emissions from North America and taking steps to protect the Arctic region from rising temperatures and oceans.
Leader of Canada
Later in the day, Obama welcomed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House, where among other issues the two were expected to discuss how the countries could work together in meeting the goal agreed to by the leaders of close to 200 countries in Paris last year — not allowing the world temperature to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius.
The White House said Canada and the United States were planning to make public their plans on climate change before year-end and ahead of the schedule laid out in Paris.
“The thinking is both countries are very committed,” said John Morton, senior director for energy and climate change in the administration. “We want to lead other countries.”
Supreme Court
The enhanced methane regulations are likely to intensify recent Republican criticism the EPA is overstepping its legal authority, an argument that gained momentum last month when the U.S. Supreme Court delayed the rollout of the president’s Clean Power Plan until its legality was decided in court.
“Rather than embrace American-made energy, President Obama and the EPA continue to regulate away our great advantages,” Rep. Joe Barton, REnnis, said in a statement Thursday.
Environmental groups have been pressuring the White House since last summer to expand methane rules to existing wells, arguing regulating only new wells captured a fraction of the methane problem.
Methane makes up about 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with about one third of those coming from oil and gas leaks, said Antonia Herzog, deputy director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“We are urging them to move forward without delay,” she said. “We believe because of the process they’ve gone through with new sources, they have a lot of the information they need already.”
Tight schedule
With less than a year left in office, Obama faces a tight schedule to get an expanded rule on methane emissions made final.
The EPA announced its plan to regulate methane from new wells in January 2015, and that rule is still pending. It is expected to be finalized before summer.
During her press conference Thursday, McCarthy did not give a timeline for this latest rule. But within the oil and gas sector, there is expectation the administration will try to publish a final rule within the next nine months.
“Certainly it will be difficult,” Isakower said. “If they moved the (data request) quickly, they could get a regulation through before they’re out the door.”