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The future proposals of the E.P.A. and the Department of the Interior would allow much more methane to escape from oil and gas drilling operations, ecologists say. "These leaks can appear anywhere, any where, in the oil and gas supply chain," said Matt Watson, methane pollution specialist within the group. Environmental Defense Fund Environmental Defense Fund. "The more you go between inspections, the more leaks will be detected and not repaired."
The proposals illustrate President Trump's policy to reduce regulation on businesses, particularly oil, gas and coal companies. While important aspects of the president's general agenda – notably the immigration and trade policy and the proposed border wall with Mexico – remain confused and the administration is struggling as part of the presidential campaign with Russia, EPA and the Ministry of the Interior have consistently pushed forward reductions in environmental regulation.
"In other areas of policy development, such as immigration and health care, they seem to have introduced ideologues into the bureaucracy that do not know much about policymaking," Cecilia said. Muñoz, who heads the Obama Administration's Domestic Policy Council. "But in the area of climate change and energy, they seem to have brought people who know exactly what they are doing and know exactly where the levers are."
The pace of the proposals was not slowed by the resignation in July of Scott Pruitt, who left his post at E.P.A. under a cloud of ethical scandals. Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who worked in the E.P.A. under the first President George Bush, is now the acting head of the agency.
According to the project presented by The Times, the EPA's new proposal would reduce the 2016 rule that forced oil and gas drillers to conduct leak inspections every six months on their drilling equipment and repair the leaks within 30 days. . The proposed amendment would extend this term to once a year in most cases and as rarely as once every two years for low production wells. This would also double the waiting time of a company before repairing a methane leak for 30 to 60 days.
This would also double the time required between inspections of the equipment that traps and compresses the natural gas, once every three months to once every six months. On the North Slope of Alaska, where oil and gas companies say it is difficult to carry out inspections because of bad weather, it would be enough to monitor this equipment every year.
In addition, the E.P.A. The proposal would allow energy companies operating in states with their own methane standards to follow these standards instead of federal standards. This would include states like Texas, where pollution standards have been more lax than federal standards.
If implemented, the proposal would recover almost all the costs to the oil and gas industry that would have been imposed by the Obama era regulations. L & # 39; E.P.A. It is estimated that this rule would have cost businesses about $ 530 million by 2025. E.P.A. estimates that the proposed changes would save the oil and gas industry $ 484 million in the same year.
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