Austin, TX- Today, the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club joined others at a Texas Railroad Commission open meeting to call on the Commission to completely eliminate routine flaring -- and associated unlit flaring and venting -- by 2025. Sierra Club also encouraged the Commission to work with stakeholders to update rules, regulations and incentives to achieve these goals.
In addition, Sierra Club called on the Commission to set an interim goal to reduce current levels of flaring to less than two percent by next year by not granting exceptions to the flaring permit that are more than five percent of total gas burned, and by assuring that no flaring permits could lead to violations of the Clean Air Act. Recent studies have shown that releases of gas through flaring, unlit flares, and fugitive emissions of methane in 2019 was nearly four percent of total gas produced. Sierra Club was invited to participate in the discussion by Chairman Wayne Christian as part of his efforts to begin a discussion about reducing flaring in Texas.
“The Commission has been granting thousands of flaring permits every year, allowing operators to flare at times between 20 to more than 60 percent of their produced gas, creating waste, pollution and ultimately cooking our climate,” noted Cyrus Reed, interim director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Because of their lenient flaring policy, we believe the Commission has actually been violating the Federal Clean Air Act, and they must now work with stakeholders and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to fundamentally reduce and eliminate routine flaring, venting, unlit flares, and other wasteful practices which hurt Texans’ lungs.”
The comments filed by Sierra Club today call on a variety of regulatory, enforcement and incentive approaches to help clean up the oil and gas fields of Texas by reducing and then eliminating emissions of methane and other pollutants. The comments can be found here.