West Texas has a gas problem. This arid stretch of scrubland, from Big Spring west to New Mexico, is the country’s most productive region for producing oil and gas. It also carries the dubious distinction of producing massive volumes of methane, a heat-trapping gas that’s nearly 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide and has been linked to more than 1 million premature deaths annually in the form of ozone pollution. Texas officials have done little to correct the problem, so for years, environmental advocates have been pressuring the federal government to enact stricter regulations on methane emissions. They finally saw some results this month at a global climate change conference, though some of their more substantive priorities were left blowing in the wind.
On November 2, at the annual climate change conference called COP26, President Joe Biden pledged to reduce the United States’ methane emissions by 30 percent from 2020 levels over the next decade. In order to hit the target, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to enact new rules to monitor and reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry, which is the nation’s largest source of methane. The EPA’s rules were also announced at COP26.
The rules will require more frequent monitoring at more than 300,000 wells across the nation; states will have to adopt a quarterly leak detection and repair program for new and existing wells, and it would also require stricter standards around venting, where excess gas produced from an oil well is released directly into the atmosphere.
