EPA methane rules need flexibility, balance to achieve lower emissions

Later this year, the annual United Nations climate change summit, COP 28, will convene in the United Arab Emirates. All indications are that this year’s conclave will focus on reducing emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. 

Indeed, the conference president designate, Sultan Ahmed al Jaber, has already called for the global oil and gas industry to phase out methane emissions by 2030.

At the same time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to adopt rules that codify new mandates for monitoring and detection of methane. In theory, the proposals will ensure that all drill sites are routinely monitored for leaks, with requirements based on the type and amount of equipment on site. They are also intended to prevent leaks from abandoned and unplugged wells by documenting that well sites are properly closed and plugged before monitoring is allowed to end. 

The problem with the current version of the proposed rules is that they lack flexibility and may actually inhibit the application of best-practice technologies in monitoring and reducing methane releases.

For example, the rules require oil and gas producers to employ one type of technology and standard of detection. But there isn’t a “best” way to detect methane leaks from all upstream and midstream operations. The most common technology currently used for methane detection is optical gas imaging (OGI). However, a recent study by researchers at Colorado State University found that the efficacy of leak detection depends more on the experience of the surveyor than on this technology itself.

Companies would not be prohibited from using technologies other than OGI, but under the rule, they would be required to follow up with a blanket OGI survey anyway. Because of cost duplication, this requirement would discourage oil and gas producers from adopting potentially more accurate leak detection technologies.

The EPA is essentially proposing a solution in search of a problem. According to the Energy Information Administration, over the last 20 years the U.S. has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than the next five countries combined. And even with a doubling of production since 2003, oil and gas sector methane emissions have fallen by nearly 10 percent. Fugitive methane from natural gas systems is down 14 percent. These reductions have come about not so much from regulation as from private initiatives.

After all, methane is a major component of natural gas. Leaks are costly and wasteful to producers. This is why, several years ago, a dozen of the world’s largest energy companies agreed to significantly lower methane leaks from oil and gas production.

The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, a consortium that includes BP, Chevron and Exxon, is investing more than $7 billion a year to reduce flaring, electrify operations with renewable energy, and utilize the best available technologies for methane leak detection. Similarly, other industry members have created The Environmental Partnership, whose 83 members have agreed to find and fix methane leaks that could reduce emissions by as much as 60 percent.

Given the success of current reduction efforts being implemented by oil and gas companies without government intervention, it makes little sense to restrict the technologies that can be used to detect methane leaks. Instead, EPA rules should encourage producers to embrace new technologies in the rapidly evolving field of leak detection that can increase methane capture while lowering compliance costs for industry. 

Policymakers and regulators also need to be mindful of the fact that fossil fuels aren’t going away anytime soon. Record production of oil and natural gas in the U.S. has not only ensured the nation’s energy security but has also allowed Europe to wean itself off Russian energy supplies. This has been achieved in large part because the U.S. has become the world’s number one exporter of liquefied natural gas and the sixth-largest exporter of crude oil. 

In view of these economic and political realities, Congress, the EPA, and the White House need to put forward a balanced, flexible approach to methane regulation that will not handicap America’s energy producers and their ongoing success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Bernard L. Weinstein is professor emeritus of applied economics at the University of North Texas, retired associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, and a fellow of Goodenough College, London.