The administration Trump Only loose rules of methane emissions. Here’s what to know

Thursday ‘, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to loosen regulations on methane, a powerful greenhouse gases to climate change known propulsion. The EPA, which is part of Trump Administration, said in a press release that it intends to solve national standards Obama was for the production of oil and natural gas, which had been converted from escaping into the atmosphere from natural limit. “EPA proposal Materials for President Trump executive order and removes needless duplication and regulatory burdens of the oil and gas industry,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in the statement. The EPA has also said it would be the legal basis must challenge the federal government as a pollutant to regulate methane. Environmental groups have criticized the move, as well as strong oil and gas companies such as Shell asked the Trump administration does not roll back provisions previously. Where methane come from? Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is produced naturally or through a number of industrial and human activities, says Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Penn State. He says that the level of natural gas, which is produced from natural sources – such as swamps or sheep or cows – is generally “more or less in balance,” because the natural methane oxidized downward is produced in the atmosphere and breaks. But over the past decade, says Mann, the amount of methane in the atmosphere has increased. According to NASA, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere has increased by about 25 Teragram year since 2006. A 2016 study found that methane levels reach their highest level in at least two decades. “We have upset the balance now to increase it,” he explains. “The processes require add methane in the atmosphere faster than outside” the man said to her that the two most important contributions to ‘pretty dramatic uptick’ of methane in the atmosphere have been hydraulic fracturing – known as fracking – and the increasing amount livestock increase milk and meat consumption. Ruminants such as cows and sheep, has digestive system unlike humans, naturally emit methane, said William Ruddiman, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. An increasing number of cows and sheep has led to an increase in methane. Fracking, a technique that deposits hypogea oil companies access and gas is known as shales, leading breaking rocks and injecting liquid oil and gas to allow trapped beneath released. Methane is a detected value produced in this process. “But they do not capture all that methane. Some of it makes its way into the atmosphere,” says Mann. What are the effects of methane gas to the environment? Methane is the second most powerful greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide explains Ruddiman. According to men, while it is less abundant than carbon dioxide, it is much more effective when it comes to storing heat. On a 20-year time scale, methane is more than 80 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide, David Doniger, strategic director of high-level climate and clean energy program to defense nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) tells TIME. However, methane is not nearly as long as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for. “A century on the road … methane now that all the products, everything will be gone. Methane tends to disappear on a time scale of ten years or so,” says Mann. Much of the carbon dioxide humans put into the atmosphere, on the other hand, is more than 1,000 years, he says. However, man shoots: “If we are really to do with the climate crisis, we will need to come to that carbon dioxide and methane under control.” Why is the reversal of the administrative limits Trump on natural gas? The management plan Trump would solve that leakage limits during transport and storage, methane and other hyrdocarbons restrictions imposed by the Obama administration on the extraction of oil and natural gas proved. The regulation was Obama in 2016 enacted tax rules for all new natural gas extraction operations in the US, said Doniger. He says he also legally obliged EPA to impose the same rules for existing operations in the country make up the bulk of oil & gas operations. The statement Thursday, the rollback of the announcement, the EPA has sold the change as a cost-saving measure. “The proposed regulatory duplication removed and the millions of dollars in cost savings sector than a year -. While maintaining the health and environmental regulations on oil and gas wells that the Agency considers appropriate” It is estimated that the proposal the oil and gas industry $97 would save about $123 million Euros between 2019 and 2025. the statement refers to other existing rules, which limit the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOC) – or compounds that become easily in steam or gas – which is still in force and supports protecting these standards against methane. , Doniger says that while it is true that there are other rules came into force, says it would be effective, new operations, and no existing effect. “So it would be new sources give a rollback, and existing sources a free pass to the obligations that currently there has not been reached.” What are the people on the rollback react? The decision was quickly denounced by environmentalists and others concerned about climate change. “This reckless rollback of fuel on the flames of a world on fire versa,” Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra indicated legal action: “We are ready to fight this foolish decision EPA” Doniger of the NRDC also said in a statement that “if the EPA ruthless ahead with this suggestion and moves left we can see in court, “the oil and gas industry has historically been divided on natural gas regulation -. many smaller companies to promote, while some larger companies publicly supported increased government regulation, cited climate change. In March, BP America President Susan God wrote in an editorial in the Houston Chronicle that the natural regulation “is exactly the right thing for the planet.” He also called methane leaks in the “Achilles heel”. In a statement in September Shell announced plans to limit its emissions of methane, and ExxonMobil has reportedly asked the EPA to regulate emissions of methane in December. What does this mean for the environment? In a call with reporters on Thursday, Anne Idsal, Assistant Administrator EPA Office of Air and Radiation, said Obama had added provisions was “quite substantial additional costs for the production of internal energy, while only minimal environmental benefits they offer. ” He also said, has doubled while the natural gas production in the United States almost since 1990, methane emissions have fallen out of the natural gas sector, by almost 15%. “We fully expect this downward trend in place emissions continue,” he said. The EPA has also said it will open a comment period of 60 days and a hearing on the proposal for discussion. However, Mann says the rollback is only part of a “full-frontal assault on the total of environmental regulations under the current administration.” It indicates the loosening of EPA limits on carbon emissions and provide the required administrative subsidies for the coal industry. Other environmental experts and lawyers also worried about the consequences of the Thursday announcement. “Today’s actions an enormous amount of additional pollution will cause, we do not, either from existing wells and new wells,” Siegel TIME say. “You can not curb the problem of climate change, can not be avoided if not curb with the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases methane catastrophic warming,” says NRDC of Doniger. “This is an unnecessary backward leap,” said Rob Jackson, an environmental scientist at Stanford. “Very few people in the public or the industry they want to roll back.” – with reporting by Justin Worland
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