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Tag: methane
Trump’s EPA Keeps Trashing The Planet

Trump’s EPA Keeps Trashing The Planet

In the face of any serious and growing problem, three options are available: You can do more to solve it. You could do the same things you’ve been doing. Or you could do things to make it worse.

When it comes to combating climate change, the Trump administration cannot be accused of foot-dragging. The problem is that it is marching briskly in the worst possible direction.

Methane is rocket fuel for global warming. It amounts to only 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but in its first 20 years in the atmosphere, it traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide. There’s an upside: Cutting methane emissions yields quicker benefits in slowing climate change. But Donald Trump cares nothing for that project.

This is the same EPA that Donald Trump turned over to Scott Pruitt, a darling of Charles and David Koch — fossil fuel billionaires. After scandals forced Pruitt’s departure, Trump replaced him with Andrew Wheeler, a lobbyist for the coal industry. In their minds, the “p” in EPA stands for “persecution.”

The oil and gas industry is the biggest single source of methane emissions. Barack Obama’s EPA issued regulations to reduce methane leaks from new wells, pipelines and processing facilities — emissions that come not from energy that is used but energy that is wasted. The change also forced companies to take measures to stop discharges from old equipment.

The rule proposed by Trump’s EPA would undo this whole effort, sparing companies the tedious obligation of frequent inspections and monitoring to detect methane leaks. Its proposal comes even though a study last year in the journal Science found that this leakage was 60 percent higher than Obama’s EPA thought.

The administration also ignores the evidence from Colorado. Since the state mandated more frequent inspections, leaks have been cut in half — while oil and gas production has set records.

It’s clearly possible to be more vigilant about pointless, damaging emissions without hindering the production, transportation or use of natural gas. Don’t take my word for it: ExxonMobil, Shell and BP, among the nation’s biggest gas producers, all oppose the reversal.

“ExxonMobil strongly encourages the agency to continue regulating methane emissions at new and modified sources, and to expand methane regulation to existing sources,” Matt Kolesar, regulatory manager at its XTO Energy, said in March. “With the experience we have gathered across our operations, we know how to reduce our methane emissions in a cost-effective manner.”

Some of its competitors, however, claim that being forced to cut down on leaks would be ruinously expensive. Reported The New York Times: “Lee Fuller, executive vice president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said the smaller operators … that his group represents could not absorb the costs that Exxon or Shell could, particularly when it came to inspecting and repairing older wells.”

Maybe it is cheaper for these companies to save money by letting methane escape. But so what? Their prosperity should not come from causing unnecessary damage to the environment and humanity in general. If they can’t afford costs that Exxon and Shell can, they are welcome to sell out to Exxon and Shell so the job can be done right.

Even the EPA doesn’t pretend the change would be financially significant. It estimates the net savings at no more than $19 million a year. That’s the equivalent of zero in the oil and gas industry, whose 2017 revenue totaled more than $135 billion.

If barring companies from indiscriminate spewing put some of them out of business, the effect on consumers would be invisible. Natural gas output in the U.S. has been so high that pipelines can’t handle it all.

The EPA sees no need for the Obama-era rules because, it says, companies will police leaks on their own. Said assistant EPA administrator Anne Idsal, “There’s every incentive for industry to minimize any type of fugitive methane emissions, capture it, use it and sell it down the road.”

She should tell the operators in West Texas that have been burning off $1 million worth of excess gas every day just to get rid of it. Oil companies in North Dakota have been flaring some 20 percent of the natural gas they bring up.

If you to protect the planet from needless harm, a policy of ignoring methane leakage and accelerating climate change is hard to understand. If you don’t care about that mission, of course, it makes perfect sense.

Obama Administration Plan Will Aim To Slash Methane Emissions

Obama Administration Plan Will Aim To Slash Methane Emissions

By Evan Halper, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday will announce an aggressive new plan to combat global warming by targeting the methane emissions released through oil and gas production, according to a summary of the initiative obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The proposal seeks to cut those emissions — a major driver of climate change — by as much as 45 percent by 2025. A White House briefing paper describes methane as “a potent greenhouse gas, with 25 times the heat-trapping potential of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.”

Methane accounted for nearly 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012, and the amount of the gas released into the atmosphere is projected to rise substantially amid the boom in domestic oil and gas production.

The call for tighter controls on methane is part of President Barack Obama’s effort to use his executive authority under the Clean Air Act to confront global warming. The administration earlier unveiled plans for strict limits on power plant emissions. Like that proposal, the methane plan is certain to draw protests and legal challenges from big energy companies.

Officials at the American Petroleum Institute have warned Obama against imposing such rules. They say energy companies are already making progress in lowering methane emissions without government intervention, pointing to big investments in new technologies and equipment. Oil and gas companies have reduced their emissions below what the federal government projected they would be by now, the officials say.

When Obama signaled in the spring that methane rules would be a key part of his climate plan, Howard Feldman, the petroleum institute’s director of regulatory and scientific affairs, said such “regulations are not necessary and could have a chilling effect on the American energy renaissance, our economy, and our national security.”

On Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce it is launching the lengthy rulemaking process for the methane plan. Its goal is to have a draft rule published by summer and the new limits in place by next year.

“This is indeed a landmark moment,” said a statement from Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “Methane pollution is both an environmental problem and a needless waste of energy, and we need responsible oversight of an issue that industry has failed to address.”

But climate change activists cautioned that the administration’s plan exempts most existing wells and drilling operations, targeting instead the new projects that come online. The Clean Air Task Force, a group that has been lobbying the administration to target methane, warned that the exemption creates a considerable loophole.

“Failing to immediately regulate existing oil and gas equipment nationwide misses 90 percent of the methane pollution from the industry,” said Conrad Schneider, the group’s advocacy director. “The administration is proposing to fight methane pollution with one hand tied behind its back, not using the full range of powers under the Clean Air Act to cut these emissions.”

The plan would instead rely on the industry to police itself for those facilities, through a voluntary system of monitoring and reporting. The provision reflects the tightrope the administration is walking. Robust oil and gas production is a key part of Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy. The summary of the administration plan lauds the strides the U.S. has made in natural gas production, pointing out that it is now the top producer in the world.

The administration frames its plan as a potential boon for energy efficiency, noting that it encourages the use of technologies that will capture more fuel.

“Reducing methane emissions means capturing valuable fuel that is otherwise wasted and reducing other harmful pollutants — a win for public health and the economy,” it says. Enough natural gas could be saved by 2025 to heat more than 2 million homes, according to the administration.

AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards

Colorado’s New Drilling Rules Seen As Making An Impact In Texas

Colorado’s New Drilling Rules Seen As Making An Impact In Texas

By Zahra Hirji, Lisa Song and Jim Morris, InsideClimate News

Colorado’s tough, new air pollution rules for the oil and gas industry were approved only a month ago, but they’re already making an impact in Texas, where lawmakers and energy companies have long-resisted tightening air standards.

Several companies have approached the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund and expressed interest in discussing whether Colorado’s rules make sense for Texas, according to Jim Marston, a vice president at EDF. Marston didn’t name the companies.

“The companies are often ahead of the Texas state government,” said Marston, who works in the group’s Austin office. “If some important industry leaders like the idea, it might move state government.”

EDF played a leading role among the environmental organizations that helped craft the Colorado rules. Many energy companies also participated in the rule-making process, but only four of them — Anadarko Petroleum Corp., DCP Midstream, Encana Corp. and Noble Energy, Inc. — fully support the new regulations.

Anadarko and DCP Midstream also operate in Texas.

The Colorado Oil & Gas Association, a trade group, had strong objections to some of the rules. For example, the association argued against requiring regular leak inspections at small storage tanks.

Marston said the individual companies’ support was crucial for the rules’ approval — and would be necessary in Texas, too. “We don’t pretend we could have done it ourselves,” he said.

Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, a citizen advocacy group, also found hope in Colorado’s actions. “Frequently, legislators in this state ask for other models to look to, and Colorado, being a big oil and gas state, is somewhere Texas officials will take seriously,” he said.

Neither Metzger nor Marston expects much action in Texas during this election year, when key positions, including governor and energy regulators, are being contested.

In Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper’s office and the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment led the process. “I’d love to think we could have the support of the governor in Texas,” Marston said, “but that’s probably a lot less likely than in Colorado.”

A recent eight-month investigation by InsideClimate News, the Center for Public Integrity and The Weather Channel revealed that nearly one in four of Texas’ current legislators or their spouses own stock or receive royalties from companies operating in the Eagle Ford Shale, one of the nation’s most active drilling regions. The report also found that Texas does little to monitor or limit the industry’s air pollution. The number of drilling permits issued in the Eagle Ford increased 168-fold in six years — from 26 in 2008 to 4,416 in 2013 — while the budget of the state’s environmental regulatory agency was slashed 39 percent. During that period residents filed hundreds of complaints about oil and gas drilling activities.

Colorado’s rules require oil and gas companies to regularly monitor and repair unintentional, or “fugitive,” leaks of gases that have adverse climate effects, like methane, a potent greenhouse gas. They also rein in gases that can cause health problems, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene, a known carcinogen.

The rules exceed regulations issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2012, which won’t fully be implemented until 2015. The EPA rules don’t directly address methane, and some of the most important apply only to gas wells.

A recent study commissioned by EDF and conducted by the consulting firm ICF International found that if the U.S. oil and gas industry adopted many of the same technologies that Colorado now requires, the industry’s methane emissions could be cut 40 percent and could save the U.S. economy more than $100 million a year.

John Christiansen, a spokesman for Anadarko, said the Colorado rules offer “a very common-sense approach to constructively addressing something that is very important to the people of Colorado.” He hopes they will help “build public trust as we move forward with our operations there.”

Last year, four Colorado communities banned hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, an extraction technique used on oil and gas wells. People who live near drilling sites in other states have also voiced concern about the industry’s air pollution, the risk of groundwater contamination and the surge of earthquakes linked to underground disposal of fracking wastewater.

Christiansen said the Colorado rules also make financial sense for the industry. Instead of releasing some of the gases into the air, companies can collect and sell them.

When asked whether Anadarko would voluntarily adopt the Colorado standards at its Texas operations, Christiansen said the company would have to gauge their effectiveness in Colorado before “(we) determine whether or not it applies to other areas.”

DCP Midstream, which also operates in Texas, did not respond to requests for comment.

The impacts of Colorado’s standards, which will be rolled out between this spring and May 1, 2016, are expected to be dramatic. State regulators predict they will eliminate at least 92,000 tons of VOCs annually — more than all the VOCs that Colorado’s cars emit each year.

The more than 20 pages of rules passed by Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission are groundbreaking because of the scope of gases they target, their rigorous monitoring guidelines and their inclusion of the industry’s smallest emitters. Here’s a rundown of five significant changes:

  • Colorado’s rules will be applied statewide, rather than being adjusted for geology or population, as they are in many states. Texas, for instance, has stronger protections in 15 counties in the densely populated Barnett Shale near Dallas-Fort Worth. Other regions of the state, including the booming Eagle Ford Shale, have much weaker regulations.
  • The rules directly address methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 to 100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Texas has no methane-specific standards, but like all other states, it enforces EPA regulations that indirectly limit methane.
  • The rules recognize that small fugitive emissions can have a major cumulative impact on air quality. Both Colorado and Texas have rules that target these leaks during facility maintenance, startups and shutdowns. But fugitive emissions also occur at other times, and Colorado’s rules better address them. For example, Colorado companies will have to inspect their largest-emitting facilities monthly and their smallest ones once a year using advanced technology. In Texas, quarterly inspections are required only for a limited number of facilities in the 15 Barnett counties.
  • Colorado gives operators five working days to fix fugitive leaks unless they can prove more time is needed. The EPA rules, which only affect facilities built or modified after Aug. 23, 2011, require repairs within five to 15 days. In Texas, operators in the 15 Barnett counties have 30 to 60 days to repair leaks. (A few Texas counties that don’t meet federal air quality standards must make the repairs within 15 days.) Thousands of facilities in other Texas counties have no deadlines for repairs. In fact, regulators don’t even know that many of them exist, because operators are allowed to audit their own emissions.
  • Colorado requires all storage tanks that release more than six tons of VOCs a year to use technology that reduces emissions by at least 95 percent. The EPA has a similar requirement, but it applies only to tanks built or modified after Aug. 23, 2011. In Texas, most tanks can emit up to 25 tons of VOCs per year. In order to meet that limit, the majority of tanks use control devices that reduce VOCs by up to 98 or 100 percent, said spokesman Terry Clawson of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Bruce Baizel, energy program director at the environmental group Earthworks, expects other states to follow Colorado’s lead on air quality regulations.

Methane control and leak detection and repair “are the next wave of issues for oil and gas,” Baizel said. Lawmakers in California and Pennsylvania are already considering adopting similar methane rules, he said, and in Texas the possibility “is at least thinkable now. Two years ago I would not have said this, but partly because of this effort, the earthquake issue, the groundwater issue, the situation has changed.”

Some environmentalists, including Sandra Steingraber, an environmental health scientist from New York who founded the nonprofit New Yorkers Against Fracking, believe no amount of regulation can effectively mitigate the health problems associated with natural gas drilling. “What we need is no fracking,” she said.

But Louis Allstadt, a former executive vice president at Mobil who is now an outspoken fracking opponent in New York, said it can’t hurt to tighten regulations as long as fracking continues.

“It’s unrealistic to expect existing wells to be shut down … until the production falls off,” Allstadt said. In the meantime, “It is critical that they be required to do the best job possible at containing” emissions.

AFP Photo/Karen Bleier