The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency will seek methane cuts from the industry of 40%
to 45% by 2025 compared with 2012 levels, according to an administration
official not authorized to speak publicly.
Methane is the second most prevalent gas tied
to climate change after carbon dioxide. The gas seeps from wells and the
compressors, pumps, pipes and storage tanks that make up the oil and gas
production and distribution network.
It’s
worrisome because methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at
trapping heat because of greenhouse effect. Methane, which leaks from oil and
gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the USA’s greenhouse gas pollution.
About
one-third of the methane emissions come from oil and gas production and
transmission.
The White
House says it can make the moves under the Clean Air Act, rather than by trying to push legislation
through the Republican-controlled congress.
Methane
emissions from oil and gas drilling and production and transmission systems are
projected to increase because of the breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing
technology that have led to an energy boom. A 2014 study published in the
journal Science
found that methane was leaking from oil and natural gas drilling sites and
pipelines at rates 50 percent higher than previously thought.
Mr.
Obama’s new regulations will be designed to curb methane leaks from oil and gas
wells, pipelines and valves — the entire fossil fuel drilling, production and
transportation system.
Initially,
they will apply only to new and modified oil and gas systems.
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