By Cyrus Reed, Lone Star Chapter Conservation Director
This month, the EPA proposed an action to weaken methane leak inspection and repair (LDAR) requirements for oil and gas operations, while the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) gutted measures that would reduce methane venting, flaring, and LDAR programs for oil and gas operations on public lands.
Take action today by telling the EPA: don't roll back safeguard for super pollutant methane!
Methane is a colorless, odorless flammable gas that is the main component of fracked gas. It’s a greenhouse gas on steroids and is not something you want polluting your community. So while it doesn’t literally stink, it sure stinks for public health, the environment, and our climate. While it’s not as long-lasting or abundant as carbon dioxide, arguably the most well-known greenhouse gas, methane is a major contributor to climate change. During the first 20 years methane is in the atmosphere, it is 87 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Importantly, the same techniques that reduce methane from oil and gas equipment can also curb emissions of smog- and soot-forming volatile organic compounds, as well as hazardous air pollutants like benzene and formaldehyde.
Under the Obama administration, EPA and other agencies took the first major steps to curb dangerous methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, but not the Trump administration is trying to throw those critical protections under the bus. This bodes particularly ill for Texas.
Let’s first take a look at our state’s history with the oil and gas industry. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” -- a process that splits rocks underground in order to release oil and gas that would otherwise remain trapped -- has completely transformed the oil and gas industry in the United States. In Texas, regions that have experienced booms in oil and gas development are in North Central Texas (the Barnett Shale), North-East Texas (Haynesville/Bossier Shale), the Granite Wash (the Panhandle), South Texas (the Eagle Ford Shale), and West Texas (Permian Basin). While Texas has always been a leader in oil and gas production, fracking has opened up vast new areas for fossil fuel development. With this development has come exponential increases in water use, gigantanormous sand mines (sand is in high demand for fracking), toxic soups of chemicals used in the fracking process, fatal traffic accidents, torn up roads, billions of gallons of toxic-laden wastewater injected underground, spills and blowouts, hundreds of thousands of tons of waste held in open pits, earthquakes, and increased air emissions.
After years of legal efforts and literally tens of thousands of comments from officials and the general public, the US EPA finally took action in 2015 to place limits on the millions of tons of methane released into the atmosphere each year due to oil and gas activity. The methane rule issued under the Obama-era EPA established a number of requirements for owners and operators of new oil and gas facilities to rein in their methane emissions. For instance, the rule mandated that all new oil and gas wells undergo “green completions” to ensure that no emissions occur when the wells are first being prepared for production. The rule also required certain technology or operating practices at new equipment such as compressors and pneumatic devices to limit their emissions.
Perhaps most importantly, the rule required owners and operators to conduct regular surveys of well sites and compressor stations to detect and repair leaking equipment. Often referred to as Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) programs, these frequent inspections help target leaks and avoid large amounts of fugitive emissions. These rules made wells and compressor stations (and related equipment) t installed after September 2015 significantly cleaner than older facilities.
In a similar vein, in 2016, the Department of the Interior approved a waste prevention rule for oil and gas drilling on public lands. The rule, to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), strengthened requirements for oil and gas companies wanting to drill on public lands. It imposed limitations on flaring and venting, established good leak detection and repair requirements, implemented superior equipment standards, and required improved reporting practices. These requirements make perfectly good sense: If the US is going to allow oil and gas development on public lands, those companies should be held to the highest standards.
But the days of these two rules seem like glory days compared to what we’re dealing with now. In a major giveaway to the oil and gas industry, the Trump administration recently replaced the BLM methane rule with a hollowed-out version that removes virtually all of the rule’s substantive protections. This rollback is now final, and Sierra Club’s attorneys are closely exploring all of our legal options, so stay tuned.
In addition, Trump’s EPA has proposed to replace its own methane rule with one that is so watered down even major oil and gas companies have pledged to go beyond it. This represents just the latest attempt by EPA to roll back this critical protection for families and communities around the country. One previous attempt by the Trump administration was so blatantly unlawful that it was struck down in federal court due to a result of a lawsuit brought by Sierra Club and others. EPA’s current proposal is no more lawful, but the administration is forging ahead nonetheless.
What does the new proposed EPA methane rule specifically do? Here are a few highlights:
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EPA is proposing to significantly weaken the rule's LDAR program by relaxing the frequency of inspection/repair surveys at both well sites and compressor stations. Under the proposed rule, low-production wells would have to complete biennial (i.e. once every two years) surveys and all other wells would have to complete annual surveys. By contrast, under the Obama-era rule, all wells would have to complete semi-annual (twice-per-year) surveys. EPA is also proposing to require compressor stations to complete either annual or semi-annual surveys (and those on the Alaskan North Slope to complete annual surveys). By contrast, under the Obama-era rule, all compressor stations had to complete quarterly surveys.
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The new rule will significantly increase emissions. According to EPA’s own figures, this looks like 380,000 more tons of methane emissions by 2025, 100,000 more tons of volatile organic compounds , and 3,800 more tons of hazardous air pollutants.
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While the Obama-era rule required a qualified professional engineer to make the determination of technical infeasibility, the new proposal would allow companies to use any in-house engineer with "technical expertise" to make that determination, regardless of PE certification. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house.
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You know it’s a bad environmental safeguard when the very industries it’s benefiting say even they can do better: oil and gas companies are already complying with the existing rules, and some - like Shell and Exxon-Mobil - have committed to go beyond the regulations of the new rule (which again, only applies to new equipment). For example, Exxon-Mobil has pledged to reduce methane emissions overall by 15 percent and flaring by 25 percent, while its subsidiary has announced an enhanced leak detection and repair program. But without strong mandatory standards in place, we won’t come close to achieving the emission reductions needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
The good news is that the EPA’s methane rule rollback is still just a proposal. It’s not over. The agency will be accepting public comments soon, and we Texans - with our home as ground zero for the oil and gas industry - need to tell them exactly where they should stick their proposal: in the dust bin.
Make your voice heard on this issue right now! Help us get to our goal of 15,000 comments.