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Mind the Gap: Study Says Obama Methane Plan Must Address
Existing Oil and Gas Industry Sources to Meet Climate Goals
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EPA Can Act This Year to Propose and Finalize
Existing Source Standards
WASHINGTON, January 26, 2016 -- The Obama Administration will not be able to
achieve its goal of reducing methane pollution from the oil and gas industry by 40-45
percent over the next decade without nationwide standards on oil and gas equipment
in use today, according to new research released today by Clean Air Task Force.
The research, entitled “Mind the Gap,” found that the Environmental Protection
Agency’s proposed methane pollution standards for equipment built or updated in the
future, together with the Bureau of Land Management’s recently proposed rule to
reduce methane waste on public lands, would reduce annual methane pollution from
the oil and gas industry by 28 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent
(CO2e). However, oil and gas methane emissions will need to be reduced an
additional 75 million metric tons of CO2e in order to meet the Administration’s
methane goal. These figures are based on CATF’s analysis of EPA and EIA data.
“As we saw last week with the BLM proposal, the Obama Administration deserves
praise for making methane pollution reduction a priority and taking important steps to
rein in dangerous methane pollution from oil and gas. But the steps taken so far fall
short of its own goals,” said Conrad Schneider, Advocacy Director, CATF. “The good
news is that there is still time remaining for the Administration to finish this job, by
proposing and finalizing robust methane standards for existing sources this year.”
In the coming years, the United States’ ability to mitigate the impacts of climate
change will require dramatic reductions of greenhouse gases like methane, which
traps more than 80 times as much heat per ton in the short term as CO2, the primary
driver of climate change. If EPA did not put standards in place to address methane
pollution from oil and gas, emissions would rise as oil and gas drilling continues over
the next decade.
The good news, however, is that additional standards on oil and gas equipment in
use today could reduce methane pollution from the oil and gas industry by more than
75 million metric tons CO2e, beyond the reductions from the rules EPA and BLM
have recently proposed. If set in place alongside the proposed standards on new
sources that were introduced last year, this would put the country on track to meet
the benchmarks set in place by the Obama administration as part of its effort to
combat global climate change.
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While the Obama Administration has suggested that new voluntary methane
reduction programs could alone help to fill the gap, these measures will not reduce
emissions enough to close the gap. For example, even the theoretical maximum
reductions promised by the “One Future Coalition” program -- which would only
occur if every single natural gas producer, processor, pipeline firm, and local gas
utility complied with the program -- would only result in a reduction of 21 million
metric tons of CO2e methane beyond the reductions from the standards recently
proposed by EPA and BLM. That’s not nearly enough to close the gap between what
current proposals achieve and where the Administration has pledged to be by 2025.
Specifically, in order to reduce emissions from the sector by 40-45% by 2025, an
existing source standard would need to require that owners and operators check
wellpads and compressor stations for leaks and promptly fix them when they do
occur, as well as address emissions from compressors, measures that EPA’s recent
proposal would require for new and modified sources. In addition, existing source
standards would need to address:
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Older equipment, especially automatic pneumatic valve controllers, including
intermittent-bleed controllers; and
Venting of gas from wells during oil production, and from gas wells when
water is being removed.
"With global temperatures continuing to rise, we cannot afford to sit back and merely
hope that the oil and gas industry will voluntarily reduce the methane
pollution released into our atmosphere that’s a major driver of climate change,”
Schneider continued. “This Administration must finish the job of cleaning up methane
emissions from all sources – new and existing. They have the authority under the
Clean Air Act, and the know-how, to act, and they must do it now.”
The full report can be found on the CATF website here:
http://www.catf.us/resources/publications/view/219
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Clean Air Task Force is a nonprofit environmental organization with offices across
the U.S. and in China. CATF works to help safeguard against the worst impacts of
climate change by catalyzing the rapid global development and deployment of low
carbon energy and other climate-protecting technologies through research and
analysis, public advocacy leadership, and partnership with the private sector. For
more information, please visit www.catf.us.