The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday finalized rescinded standards for methane emissions in the oil and gas industry and foreshadowed similar actions for other pollutants.
The finalized rule rescinds standards that specifically regulate methane emissions from oil and gas production, processing, transmission and storage.
The agency rule also sets the stage for rollbacks to other pollutants by arguing that the EPA under former President Obama did not sufficiently define what constitutes a “significant” contribution to climate change under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA intends to put forth another rule with a definition for “significant,” with the methane rule stating that it could apply its new criteria in future decisions.
The agency argued in the rule that the standards it rescinded were redundant, overlapping substantially with other regulations regarding volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
However, in specifically regulating methane from this sector in 2016, the Obama administration determined that while standards for VOCs also “incidentally” reduce methane emissions, a methane-specific standard would “achieve meaningful [greenhouse gas] GHG reductions and will be an important step towards mitigating the impact of GHG emissions on climate change.”
This story is developing and will be updated.
