White House targets methane
Reducing emissions of the greenhouse gas is part of a wider strategy to combat climate change.
WASHINGTON - The White House announced a wide-ranging plan Friday aimed at cutting methane emissions from oil and gas drilling, landfills, and other sources.
The plan, part of President Obama's strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, comes amid concerns about increased methane emissions resulting from the boom in drilling for oil and natural gas.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas released by landfills, cattle, and leaks from oil and gas production. It is 21 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the most abundant global warming gas, although it doesn't stay in the air as long.
Experts say methane leaks can be controlled with better gaskets, maintenance, and monitoring. Such fixes are also thought to be cost-effective, because the industry ends up with more gas to sell.
In the booming Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana, huge amounts of methane and other gases are burned off, or flared, during oil production, wasting millions of dollars and contributing to air pollution.
The White House said the Environmental Protection Agency would study how methane is released during oil and gas drilling and decide by the end of the year whether to develop new regulations for methane emissions. If imposed, the regulations would be completed by the end of 2016, just before Obama leaves office.
The White House also said the Interior Department would propose updated standards to reduce venting and flaring of methane from oil and gas production on public lands. Next month, the Bureau of Land Management will begin a rule-making process to require the capture and sale of methane waste produced by coal mines on lands leased by the federal government.
This summer, the EPA will propose updated standards to reduce methane from new landfills and consider whether to impose new standards for existing landfills.
In June, the Agriculture Department and other agencies will release a strategy for voluntary steps to reduce methane emissions from cattle, with the goal of cutting dairy greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
The White House plan comes amid conflicting estimates about how much methane comes from oil and gas production.
The EPA said in a report last spring that tighter pollution controls the oil and gas industry instituted had resulted in an average annual decrease of 41.6 million metric tons of methane emissions from 1990 through 2010, or more than 850 million metric tons overall. The figure is about a 20 percent reduction from previous estimates.
A University of Texas study published in September largely agreed with those findings, but another study published in November said government methane estimates were off by as much as 50 percent below actual methane emissions.