Congress has moved to restore environmental regulations to limit the amount of methane that leaks from U.S. oil and gas production facilities, reversing a Trump era rollback for the greenhouse gas. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group, encouraged former President Donald Trump to undo 2016 Obama-era methane rules, the first ever federal restrictions on the gas. Regulators said the rollback would save energy producers $100 million a year in compliance costs.
The House voted 229-191 Friday to eliminate those U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules issued last year that eased restrictions on methane gas emissions, including by excluding transmission and storage facilities from limits and cutting compliance measures.
The Senate passed the rollback in April in a 52-42 vote. President Biden is expected to sign the measure, which would mark one of the first major federal actions toward reaching his goal of cutting U.S. emissions from their 2005 level in half within the decade. The White House hasn’t explained how it plans to reach that target. Mr. Biden is pushing for heavy federal spending on innovations such as more efficient batteries and carbon capture technology, measures that could reduce emissions down the line.
Methane, a component of natural gas, can escape as it moves through millions of miles of pipelines on its way to production facilities.
The push to restrict methane emissions came after scientists, whose early climate research focused on carbon dioxide, realized that the gas is more potent at trapping the earth’s heat.
Leak data has also become more reliable over the past decade, bringing the role that the gas plays in climate change into clearer view, said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of energy at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. Before the data, the odorless, clear gas made it easy for industry groups to “pretend the problem was minimal or didn’t exist.”
Researchers said recently that cutting methane emissions from energy production, agriculture and other industry sectors could slow the rate of the planet’s warming by as much as 30%.
The oil and gas lobby initially fought methane regulations but has recently eased up on that effort, including API which now says it supports federal methane regulations.
Major oil and gas producers— Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. , BP PLC—said they support methane regulations as they face pressure from investors on climate issues. The costs of the methane restrictions reimposed by Congress will weigh more heavily on smaller operators, industry officials said.