The overwhelming majority of speakers at a public hearing Wednesday urged federal officials not to weaken the regulation of methane pollution from oil and gas operations. But a handful of industry representatives said the proposed changes will reduce unnecessary costs for producers.
The hearing at the regional Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters in Denver will be the only public hearing on the proposed rollback of a methane rule approved in 2016. The rule was part of the Obama administration’s efforts to address climate change and is, along with the proposed reversal of stricter vehicle fuel-economy standards, part of the Trump administration’s stated goal of reducing regulations.
Methane, a primary component of natural gas, is a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas, more potent than carbon dioxide.
Matthew Todd with the American Petroleum Institute, a national trade association, said the industry has shown leadership and applied technological innovations to reduce emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases even while oil and gas production has surged.
“We’re committed to identifying sound regulatory policies that lead to cost-effective solutions that provide real environmental benefit,” said Todd, adding that API supports the proposed changes to the methane rule.
However, many of the speakers said the EPA should maintain what they called common sense safeguards. Colorado residents, as well as people who traveled from Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, said the EPA has a responsibility to protect the public’s health and the environment.
“We’re quite concerned about the impacts of air pollution on children’s health and also the impact of climate change,” said Christine Berg, the mayor of Lafayette, mother of two daughters and the Colorado field consultant for the environmental group Moms Clean Air Force. “It’s time to protect people over corporate profits and to stop playing politics with our children’s health.”
The rule, open for public comment until Dec. 17, would reduce the frequency of required inspections of oil and gas equipment for methane leaks. Wells would have to be inspected once a year instead of twice a year, as currently required. Low-producing wells would have to be checked every other year instead of once a year under the current rule.
Compressor stations, which compress the gas to keep it moving through the lines, would be inspected one or twice a year instead of four times a year.
Rolling back the current requirements would be a huge blow to efforts to rein in climate change, speakers said. Methane’s lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide, but it is 25 times more efficient at trapping radiation, according to the EPA. Oil and gas operations are the largest source of methane emissions in the U.S.
Speakers also said preventing methane leaks helps stem the release of other harmful pollution, including benzene, known to cause cancer, and a mix of organic compounds that form ground-level ozone, a component of smog.
The EPA’s own analysis shows that loosening the methane regulations would add hundreds of thousands of tons of more methane in the air. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry would save up to $75 million annually, according to the EPA.
The 2016 methane rule was fashioned after one Colorado approved in 2014 when it became the first state in the nation to limit methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The rules require companies to find and fix methane leaks and install equipment to capture most of the emissions. That has spurred a growth in businesses specializing in capturing and selling the gas.
Only a handful of other states, including California and Pennsylvania, regulate methane emissions.
There are several technical issues with the current federal methane rule, but the bigger problem is that it creates unnecessary red tape, especially in states with their own rules, said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a Colorado-based trade organization. The requirements also make it hard for companies to use new and innovative technology to look for and prevent leaks, she added.
“The proposal provides for better flexibility for technology rather than prescribing a certain type of technology,” Sgamma said.
Dan Grossman, the Environmental Defense Fund’s national director of state programs for oil and gas, expressed dismay with oil and gas companies that have seen how stemming methane leaks can be cost-effective and yet fail to speak up for keeping the current rule.
“What is unfortunate is their silence really calls into question the role that natural gas can play in a clean energy future,” Grossman said.
Because it burns more cleanly than coal, producing about half as much carbon dioxide, natural gas has been seen as “bridge fuel” in a transition to the use of mostly renewable energy sources.
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who couldn’t attend the hearing but submitted written testimony, said during a call with reporters Tuesday that Colorado’s experience shows that “a well-crafted rule for fugitive methane can improve public health and strengthen the economy without harming oil and gas production.
“With this record, it makes absolutely no sense why the Trump administration would want to repeal the national methane standards,” Bennet added.
