New Trump administration proposals would make it easier for oil and gas drillers to release methane into the air - Entrepreneur Generations

"The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere," Coral Davenport reports for The New York Times. "Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome."

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to propose a rule weakening an Obama-era rule requiring companies to monitor and repair methane leaks. And the Interior Department will soon release the final version of a rule repealing a restriction on deliberate methane venting from drilling operations. Under Obama-era rules, oil and gas drillers had to check for methane leaks as often as every six months and repair them within 30 days. The new EPA rule would lengthen the time between required inspections to one or two years, and would double the amount of time given to repair a leak to 60 days, Davenport reports.

Kathleen Sgamma, president of oil and gas trade and lobby group the Western Energy Alliance, praised the new rules, telling Davenport that the old methane rule was "the definition of red tape" and a "record-keeping nightmare." 

"The new rules follow two regulatory rollbacks this year that, taken together, represent the foundation of the United States’ effort to rein in global warming," Davenport reports. "In July, the EPA proposed weakening a rule on carbon dioxide pollution from vehicle tailpipes. And in August, the agency proposed replacing the rule on carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants with a weaker one that would allow far more global-warming emissions to flow unchecked from the nation’s smokestacks."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2oYNOCL New Trump administration proposals would make it easier for oil and gas drillers to release methane into the air - Entrepreneur Generations

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