There is no benefit to a methane leak. They cost companies money, threaten harm to workers and local communities, and contribute to climate change. And yet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to roll back common sense standards that were put in place to limit methane emissions from new and modified sources in the oil and gas industry. These standards, finalized in 2016, would protect workers and local communities, address climate change, and create jobs for workers around the country.
The EPA’s has proposed dangerous changes to the rule that would leave farm more time for leaks to go undetected and unaddressed. The proposal includes:
Changing requirements for how often leak detection and repair must be conducted. The proposal would allow a year, and sometimes up to two years, between inspections instead of the current six-month requirement; Doubling the time requirement in which leaks must be repaired from 30 to 60 days; and Dramatically changing the inspection requirements for gas trapping and compressing equipment from every three months to every six months (and in some cases, once a year).The oil and gas industry is the largest U.S. emitter of methane—a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its impact on climate change. These leaks are also dangerous to workers and communities. Natural gas leaks release not only methane, but also a host of other dangerous pollutants as well—like the carcinogen benzene—that damage air quality and threaten the health of workers in the industry and nearby communities.
The EPA has said that it hopes to avoid unnecessary costs to the oil and gas industry by rolling the standards back. The problem with that logic is that the very leaks the standards aim to plug cost the oil and gas industry billions of dollars each year. Nationwide, methane emissions waste enough gas to heat nearly 10 million homes annually. That waste is unnecessary.
Cost-effective solutions exist today
The amount of lost gas—and lost profits for the industry—is absurd. The situation is even more senseless when considering that there are already cost-effective solutions that exist today to avoid those losses. Those solutions represent yet another benefit of taking action to reduce methane leaks. Not only does the installation and implementation of these leak reduction technologies and practices create jobs, but we can manufacture the technology here in America, creating even more good jobs.
Research we’ve done shows that installing and implementing the kind of technology and practices required under the current standards would create nearly 5,400 direct and indirect jobs annually throughout a number of sectors, including manufacturing. With full and continuing adoption of leak-reducing technologies and processes at new and modified oil and gas facilities, over 50,000 jobs would be created over the course of the first decade.
The math is simple; implementing the standard will be a win-win-win, while rolling it back will rack up losses across the board. If the standards are rolled back, oil and gas companies will continue to unnecessarily waste massive amounts of gas, polluting our air and exposing, workers and communities to dangerous emissions. In addition, these emissions will only make climate change worse. At a time when we’re seeing stronger, more frequent, and dangerous storms and other impacts from climate change, that is not a risk we can afford to take.
Keeping the standards in place means workers and communities will be protected, jobs will be created, and our nation will take a concrete step toward reducing a potent greenhouse gas. The leadership of the EPA should withdraw this proposal and leave the standards we already have in place.