Obama Administration Cracking Down On Potent Planet-Warming Gas

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday final rules that will crack down on methane emissions from the booming natural gas industry.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that has much greater planet-warming potential in the short term than carbon dioxide. It is also a primary component of natural gas, and its release during the oil and gas extraction and transportation process has emerged as a major concern as the U.S. has vastly increased its gas production. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking -- a process that uses a high-pressure blast of water, sand and chemicals to tap into gas contained in shale rock -- has allowed the U.S. to unlock a lot more gas in recent years.

For new and modified oil and gas extraction sites, the EPA has set new standards for reducing emissions that the agency says will capture 510,000 short tons of methane in 2025 -- the equivalent of 11 million metric tons of CO2. The standards aim to prevent leaks from operations and facilities. The rules also crack down on the release of volatile organic compounds and other toxic air emissions.

The EPA released a draft of these rules in August. The agency said it received more than 900,000 comments on that proposal.

"Every leak fixed," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a call with reporters Thursday, means "less pollution affecting the health of communities and the stability of the climate."

The EPA also said Thursday that it will begin to collect information on leaks from existing wells and infrastructure, with plans to regulate those sources as well. The EPA's data collection is supposed to begin in the fall, however, which means the Obama administration is not going to issue any rules for those sources before leaving office.

The Obama administration has set a goal of reducing methane emissions from oil and gas up to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025.

Environmental groups largely praised the final rules, while arguing that regulations for existing infrastructure are crucial to meeting the overall reduction goals. "Today’s action to limit emissions from newly created sources of this pollution is an important start. It cannot stop there," Antonia Herzog, deputy director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. "The vast majority of the problem lies in the oil and gas infrastructure that already exists across the country. EPA must follow through on the President’s commitment to address these sources next, and soon."

But the oil and gas industry is pushing back on the new rules, calling them "unreasonable" in a statement from the American Petroleum Institute. "It doesn’t make sense that the administration would add unreasonable and overly burdensome regulations when the industry is already leading the way in reducing emissions," API Vice President of Regulatory and Economic Policy Kyle Isakower said in a statement. "Imposing a one-size-fits-all scheme on the industry could actually stifle innovation and discourage investments in new technologies that could serve to further reduce emissions."

The Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also balked, saying in a statement  that the rules "will add significant burdens and costs to an already highly regulated industry."