EPA targets oil and gas industry methane leaks

The Environmental Protection Agency has taken another step in President Barack Obama’s aggressive efforts to combat climate change, releasing proposals on Tuesday to require the oil and gas industry to reduce emissions of methane.

Methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, is a so-called “greenhouse gas” that is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat.

The EPA proposals for the oil and gas industry — in which Texas is the nation’s leading player — will go through a period of public comment that could last a year.

But one of their biggest impacts will be more immediate. They focus attention on what the industry is doing already to reduce methane emissions and what it could do better.

They also put a spotlight on methane emissions in the most productive oil and gas areas, including the 25-county Barnett Shale field in and around Fort Worth.

Oil and gas industry representatives say they’ve already reduced methane leaks from drilling sites, pipelines, compressor stations and other infrastructure. They know it’s much better to trap that gas and sell it than to continue letting it escape into the atmosphere.

The industry says the proposed regulations would be costly and unnecessary.

Still, a series of peer-reviewed studies released last month and reported in the journal Environmental Science and Technology suggested that methane leaks in the Barnett Shale had been vastly underestimated.

Human error — like leaving a port open on a storage tank for natural gas liquids — and faulty equipment get most of the blame. Most facilities have low leakage rates.

Environmental groups have complained that the EPA’s proposals don’t go far enough because they aim mainly at new facilities.

Expect a lot of political rhetoric — U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, called the proposals part of the administration’s “war on energy jobs” — and, before it’s all over, lawsuits aimed at blocking new regulations.

Along the way, we’ll learn a lot about methane.

This story was originally published August 21, 2015 at 6:51 PM with the headline "EPA targets oil and gas industry methane leaks."