By Kelsey Krepps, Senior Campaign Representative, Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign
In November 2022, President Biden and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a supplemental rule to reduce methane and other dangerous emissions from oil and gas operations across the country -- an update of and improvement to the original draft rule from 2021.
The proposal is a critical step to protecting Pennsylvanians, as Pennsylvania has the longest legacy of oil and gas well development, from the first wells of Titusville to the frack wells of today. All of them leak methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the short term, contributing heavily to the climate crisis and health concerns.
The EPA’s proposal requires leak detection and repair at all wells, including smaller wells not covered under last year’s draft rule. This update not only addresses a gap in the previous federal proposal, but also addresses a current loophole within Pennsylvania's state-based volatile organic compound (VOCs) regulations that currently exempts low-producing wells from regular inspections, despite these wells often having the most leak-prone equipment and often, some of the largest methane spewers in the state.
The new proposal also establishes a program that allows third parties to submit data to the EPA identifying very large emission events. This extra emissions data helps to combat the ‘self-reporting’ aspects of the industry, which are often fraught with errors or missing data altogether, like much of Pennsylvania emission data, currently. While the rule needs to clarify how communities and individuals can report these large leak events, providing a provision for resident involvement is a step in the right direction.
The rule also requires monitoring at abandoned well sites until they are plugged properly. Abandoned wells are proliferating in Pennsylvania, and an issue that Sierra Club has been working to address through our state campaign to raise oil and gas bond amounts.
One area of the rule that needs to be strengthened is the practice of routine ‘flaring’ of gas at oil wells. This happens more frequently in other states, but we must ensure that operators at wells avoid flaring gas, thereby reducing high-emission pollution incidents that not only emit methane, but smog-causing VOC emissions and carcinogens into the atmosphere. The EPA must also widen standards to address emissions from more storage tanks.
As Pennsylvanians have much to gain by a strong methane rule, its quick finalization and implementation should be strongly encouraged, so Pennsylvania communities (and beyond) can receive emission reduction benefits, like improved health, as soon as possible. Please submit your comment to the EPA by the February 13th deadline.
Tell the EPA to finalize the strongest possible methane safeguards now!
This blog was included as part of the February 2023 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!