North Dakota Lawmakers, Pro-Business Groups Push For Senate Repeal Of BLM Methane Rule

[Smokin Joe]

http://westernwire.net/north-dakota-lawmakers-push-for-senate-repeal-of-blm-methane-rule/
Simon Lomax March 14, 2017

Two lawmakers from North Dakota, the second largest oil-producing state in the nation, are turning up the heat on the U.S. Senate to repeal a last-minute Obama administration regulation targeting energy development on federal lands. At the same time, a national pro-business group is calling on the Senate to act, launching a multi-media advertising campaign targeting North Dakota and five other states

U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) is demanding the Senate vote “as soon as possible” to repeal a U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule targeting methane emissions from oil and gas development. The “venting and flaring” rule, finalized two months before President Barack Obama left office, has angered officials from across the West. A disapproval motion under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which would repeal the venting and flaring rule, passed the U.S. House more than five weeks ago and is now before the Senate.

(much more at the link above)

This issue is still alive and important to not just new oil drilling, but oil production from existing wells. Natural gas is a byproduct of oil drilling in this area, and worth a small fraction of the value of the oil produced. Still producers who would otherwise gather the wellhead gas and process it, have problems with Federal agencies delaying permit approval for projects including rights of way for gathering pipelines to gas processing facilities--so the BLM creates the problem it tries to 'solve'.  States and industry have worked together to significantly reduce the amount of flared gas despite a huge increase in production.

The rule was one of those thrown in on the way out the door by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management).

Here is a fact sheet on the new rule: https://www.backthebakken.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BLM-Fact-sheet-final.pdf
The rule will go into effect if the Congress doesn't throw it out. That part is past the House, and the Senate is close, vote wise.

The fact sheet only outlines the effects on North Dakota, but other states, especially ones where there are more Federal Lands will be affected if the rule goes into effect.

Please contact your senators in DC and have them vote to have this BLM rule thrown out.

[DB]

 A disapproval motion on the BLM would be better... The BLM is another agency out of control.

[Smokin Joe]

A disapproval motion on the BLM would be better... The BLM is another agency out of control.

I absolutely agree, but this would help. I found it interesting after Finicum was shot that the acronym "BLM" was flooded into the press as "Black Lives Matter". Maybe if the Clintons had thought of that they could have come up with a protest group with ATF or BATF. For a while the riot group flooded out search engines.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Besides containing a lot of oil, all of this commotion over federal lands is one reason why the Permian is so hot right now.

Private and state lands only for the most part.

Thank God for keeping Texas lands from becoming federal lands when it joined the Union, unlike the other unfortunate territories which later became states in the West.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/annexation/march1845.html

 Republic of Texas, shall retain funds, debts, taxes and dues of every kind which may belong to, or be due and owing to the said Republic; and shall also retain all the vacant and unappropriated lands lying within its limits, to be applied to the payment of the debts and liabilities of said Republic of Texas, and the residue of said lands, after discharging said debts and liabilities, to be disposed of as said State may direct;

[geronl]

Sounds like something the EPA should do (not that it should) rather than the BLM. The air is not land.

[Smokin Joe]

Sounds like something the EPA should do (not that it should) rather than the BLM. The air is not land.

Actually, something the EPA shouldn't either. States establish regulations for methane (and wellhead gas) venting and flaring partly because of extraction tax revenue losses for flared gas. Oil companies will capture the gas as a marketable byproduct whenever they can get it to processing facilities because it usually makes money, or offsets the cost of being penalized for not doing so.
One of the problems, though, is getting the permits and rights of way to cross Federal lands with the feeder pipelines to get wellhead gas to the processing facilities, and the BLM has been one of the alphabet soup that either issues these permits or drags its feet.

In essence, the government agencies have helped create the 'problem' they have aimed these rules at.
 
In reality, the amount of flared gas has decreased, even though the amount of gas produced has increased quite significantly.