WYOMING — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new proposal to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
According to the Wyoming Outdoor Council (WOC), if enacted, this rule would be the first action by the EPA to regulate methane emissions from the thousands of existing oil and gas wells in Wyoming. The rule is expected to promote new cost-effective technologies to prevent waste and make natural gas more competitive as consumers demand cleaner sources of energy.
“Today’s announcement of new measures to cut methane and other harmful pollutants from oil and gas operations is welcome news for protecting our health, our environment and Wyoming’s open spaces,” said John Burrows, the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s energy and climate policy director. “These revised rules build off of Wyoming’s own successes in reducing harmful emissions and will limit wasted methane from leak-prone equipment.”
The updated proposal would require routine monitoring of well sites, encourage the development and use of new leak detection technologies, and set higher standards for flaring — a practice by which methane is burned as a waste product rather than captured and sold.
According to the WOC, methane emissions from human activities are responsible for about 30 percent of global warming since the industrial revolution.
