The Biden administration announces a rule to reduce methane emissions by millions of tons

The United States will, for the first time, require oil and gas producers to detect and repair leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that wafts into the atmosphere from pipelines, drilling sites and storage facilities and is dangerously accelerating the rate of global warming .

Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced the arrangement in Dubai, where diplomats from nearly 200 countries have gathered for a two-week United Nations climate summit. Methane is not as widely discussed as the carbon dioxide that results from burning fossil fuels, but it has become a rare area of ​​progress in this week’s global talks.

The regulation would prevent 58 million tons of methane emissions by 2038, officials said. That’s about the equivalent of all the carbon dioxide emitted by U.S. coal-fired power plants in one year. Mr. Regan called it one of the most important policies the United States will have in place to slow the pace of climate change over the next 15 years.

“On day one, President Biden restored America’s critical role as a global leader in the fight against climate change, and today we backed that promise with strong action, significantly reducing methane emissions and other air pollutants that put communities at risk,” said Mr Regan. in a statement. The rule will come into effect in early 2024.

Methane is the most common greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. It only lingers in the atmosphere for about a decade after it is released, but is about 80 times more powerful at trapping heat in the short term than carbon dioxide, which remains in the air for centuries.

Scientists say it is responsible for more than a quarter of the 1.4 degrees Celsius warming the planet has experienced since pre-industrial times. Cutting methane, they say, is essential to achieving the global goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and acting now can help buy the planet time as countries grapple with the more controversial issue of reducing CO2 emissions.

John Kerry, President Biden’s global climate envoy, said in an interview before the summit that it was still possible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, largely thanks to global efforts to reduce methane. The United States and Europe launched a coalition in 2021 that has grown to more than 150 countries that have agreed to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. That group is expected to add new members during the current summit in Dubai, known as COP28.

The United States and China also struck a deal last month in which China agreed to set a target for methane reduction, something it had yet to do despite methane being responsible for about 40 percent of that country’s greenhouse gases.

The EPA regulation is the largest new initiative to address climate change in the United States expected from the Biden administration at COP28. It comes as the government is under pressure to back a global pledge to phase out fossil fuels.

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group, called the EPA policy “the most impactful climate rule the United States has ever adopted in terms of addressing temperatures that we would otherwise see.”

But Republicans in Congress said the regulations would hurt the gas industry and also raise energy prices for Americans at home.

“Federal overreach to advance a misguided climate agenda has become a staple of the Biden administration,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of Wyoming, said in a statement. She called the final rule “just another example of this harmful regulation.”

An odorless, colorless, flammable gas, methane, is produced by landfills, agriculture, ranching, and oil and gas drilling. The fossil fuel industry is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the United States. Oil and gas companies often deliberately burn methane or release it into the atmosphere during gas production.

The fossil fuel industry has been divided over methane regulations for years, but many companies voiced their support on Friday.

The Obama administration established rules intended to prevent methane leaks from oil and gas wells built since 2015, but these were rescinded by the Trump administration. President Biden promised to restore and strengthen these after he was elected. Older oil and gas platforms typically leak more methane than new systems.

As concentrations of methane in the atmosphere have increased, environmentalists have become increasingly concerned about its role in climate change.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the scheme would reduce about 58 million tons of methane emissions between 2024 and 2038, the equivalent of about 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, about what the country’s entire power sect spewed out in one year. By 2030 alone, the agency estimates, the rule’s projected reductions are equivalent to 130 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, more than the annual emissions of 28 million gasoline cars.

The EPA said it included provisions to “limit wasteful and polluting natural gas flaring,” but the rule will be phased in over time. The agency said it wanted to give the industry enough time to obtain pollution control equipment such as air screening, sensor networks or satellites needed to meet the requirements.

The rule also requires extensive monitoring for methane leaks from wells and compressor stations, although the agency insists it gives companies “flexibility” to use low-cost monitoring technologies. And it also sets standards that require emissions reductions from high-emitting equipment such as controllers, pumps and storage tanks.

Finally, the rule includes a program to deploy independent third parties that would use remote sensing to detect large methane emissions or leaks known as “superemitters,” which recent studies have shown to account for nearly half of methane emissions of the oil and gas sector.

Climate advocates said they hoped the new U.S. rule would pave the way for more global progress in reducing methane. For the time being, however, emissions are going in the wrong direction. Last year, methane emissions increased, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization.