Biden administration announces $850 million in grants to cut methane emissions

The Biden administration announced Friday the availability of $850 million in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) grants aimed at reducing methane emissions.

In remarks to reporters, Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk said the funds will be offered across three categories: those cutting emissions from current oil wells, those focusing on leaks from other equipment such as engines, and those for improved leak monitoring in communities adjacent to oil and gas plants, with particular emphasis on low-income and majority-minority communities. Turk said the grants will support projects across 14 states.

Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe, who was also on the call, presented the funds as offering a leg up for smaller operators that would enable them to better comply with federal emissions rules, “while also supporting partnerships that improve emissions measurement, and provide accurate transparent data to impacted communities.”

“This effort will help reduce inefficiencies in the US oil and gas operations will help mitigate legacy air pollution create new jobs in the energy sector and in disadvantaged communities, and will help us realize near term emissions reductions and our ambitious climate and clean air goals,” McCabe added.

She explicitly tied the administration’s emissions-reduction efforts to the impacts of climate change, including the intense heat that has blanketed much of the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. this week.

“Just this week’s the Northeast is experiencing yet another heat dome [and] a few weeks ago California was experiencing record-breaking temperatures, and we’ve seen heat-related illnesses and deaths spike across the southern United States,” she said, calling cuts to methane emissions “among the most critical actions the United States can take in the short term to slow the rate of climate change. And to protect our nation’s health and communities.”

Methane, which comprises about a third of greenhouse gas emissions, persists in the atmosphere for less time than carbon dioxide but is three times as potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere.