New EPA methane rules spell disaster for American economy

[Free Vulcan]

More than a dozen states have now filed lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency over its new regulations on methane emissions.
 
Court rulings against the Obama administration will likely start rolling in soon. The regulations are based on dubious data and driven more by politics than science. They would devastate the economy and the environment.
 
We simply can't let a federal power play bring the American energy revolution to a halt.
 
Last year, the EPA reported that, since 2005, net methane emissions from natural gas infrastructure had fallen 38 percent, while total methane emissions from natural gas had dropped 11 percent.
 
This year, however, the EPA claims methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are one-third higher than previously thought. And that overall methane emissions from natural gas have dropped only 0.68 percent since 2005. That's quite a turnaround. What happened?...

Read more at: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/304358-new-epa-methane-rules-spell-disaster-for-american-economy

[Smokin Joe]

More than a dozen states have now filed lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency over its new regulations on methane emissions.
 
Court rulings against the Obama administration will likely start rolling in soon. The regulations are based on dubious data and driven more by politics than science. They would devastate the economy and the environment.
 
We simply can't let a federal power play bring the American energy revolution to a halt.
 
Last year, the EPA reported that, since 2005, net methane emissions from natural gas infrastructure had fallen 38 percent, while total methane emissions from natural gas had dropped 11 percent.
 
This year, however, the EPA claims methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are one-third higher than previously thought. And that overall methane emissions from natural gas have dropped only 0.68 percent since 2005. That's quite a turnaround. What happened?...

Read more at: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/304358-new-epa-methane-rules-spell-disaster-for-american-economy

What happened is that the EPA cooked the books to attribute methane from natural sources to the oil and gas industry. Methane equals Natural Gas which (aside from being a fire hazard if there is a leak--which is why it is flared when it can't be transported to processing facilities) is money. There is every incentive in the oil and gas industry to capture, contain, and market that methane. Even flaring of wellhead gas has been drastically reduced as ever more gas is produced as a byproduct of oil production, because infrastructure development has caught up with the boom, and that gas is processed and marketed.

EPA did it's damndest to hobble the industry, having set out on an unsuccessful years long crusade to 'prove' that hydraulic fracturing contaminated groundwater. Currently, the Federal Government is delaying completion of a pipeline that would move half of the oil produced in North Dakota to refineries, with no methane or VOC boil off from tank cars. (The Corps of Engineers is letting some 3000-5000 people camp on Corps of Engineers land to protest the pipeline and stop progress. Try doing that with the kids some weekend. The Corps of Engineers shut down people just out to the beach for the day on other Corps land in ND.)

Swamps and other natural bioreactors have no such incentive, and every one of us is a producer of methane.

[r9etb]

.... every one of us is a producer of methane.

I blame the Big Cabbage and Big Milk cabals.

[Smokin Joe]

I blame the Big Cabbage and Big Milk cabals.

Big Beans!

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Swamps and other natural bioreactors have no such incentive, and every one of us is a producer of methane.

Yep they are http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/02/methane-regulations-add-to-the-price-tag-of-the-administrations-climate-plan

Globally, 60 percent of methane emissions are manmade, while 40 percent occur naturally.[4] In the United States, the single largest source of manmade emissions comes from enteric fermentation, or the digestive processes of livestock.[5] The next most predominant source is natural gas systems followed by landfills, coal mining, manure management, and petroleum systems. Wetlands cause nearly 80 percent of all naturally occurring methane output, followed by termites and leakage from the ocean surface.[6]

If we truly wish to cut back on methane emissions in this country, we need to drain the swamps/