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The Trump administration is about to propose its latest backtracking of the Obama era's climate rules, aimed at easing requirements for oil and gas companies designed to limit methane leaks, officials said of the administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to release Wednesday a proposal that would facilitate compliance with the rules to limit the amount of methane released into the atmosphere by oil and gas companies.
The EPA proposal aims to ensure that oil and gas companies have more time to safely assess and repair infrastructure, often in remote locations, according to a draft summary of the proposal.
The proposed changes, among other things, would give drillers one year to perform leak inspections instead of just six months and 60 days to make repairs instead of 30, says the document.
Environmentalists are likely to oppose the plan, saying that delayed inspections and repair schedules are likely to increase the amount of harmful gases released into the environment and that the proposal paves the way for further reductions in climate regulations .
The proposal follows other steps taken by EPA early this year to ease climate rules, including measures to reduce carbon restrictions on power plants and power plants. automobiles.
Carbon and methane are considered two important drivers of climate change. Methane, however, is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon in the short term and frequently leaks oil and gas wells, storage tanks and process plants.
The administration of former President Barack Obama has established stricter rules to fight against methane leaks. The rules were supposed to be a fundamental part of its efforts to slow climate change, along with the rules to reduce carbon emissions in the energy and transport sectors.
The energy industry has long complained that these rules constituted an override of regulations, claims adopted by the Trump administration, which counts among its many former employees and allies of the sector of l & # 39; 39; energy.
Backtracking is also an effort to keep the campaign promises of Mr. Trump, who called global warming a hoax and blamed environmental rules for preventing economic growth.
The EPA plan comes as the Interior Ministry also makes its own proposal that would virtually eliminate its Obama era rulers aimed at reducing methane emissions from drilling operations on the ground. federal lands.
EPA and Interior officials discussed the possibility of making a joint announcement. However, he told a senior official of the administration, Interior is at a very different stage of its dismantling, close to completing a proposal made in February.
The news of the imminent publication of the methane proposal was reported Monday in The New York Times.
"We welcome EPA's efforts to get it right and the proposed changes could ensure that the rule is based on best engineering and cost-effective practices," said Howard Feldman, senior director of business regulatory and scientific lobby of the oil industry. , the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement.
Although many details of the proposal are progressive and relatively technical, broader changes are still under consideration. The draft summary indicates that the agency will subsequently issue a separate proposal for its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. Environmentalists are concerned that they prefer an ultimate effort to wipe out the agency's control over methane from oil and gas operations.
"The net effect would be a fig leaf of a rule that does almost nothing to reduce emissions in the long run," said Matt Watson, associate vice president of climate and energy program at the Environmental Defense Fund. , a non-profit environmental group. coordinated some of the country's most important research on methane leaks.
Write to Timothy Puko at [email protected]
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