Oh Well!! EPA Finalizes Rule To Fine O&G Companies For Methane Releases - It's Unlikely To Survive Shitstain's Return

Oil and gas companies will be required to pay a first-ever nationwide fee for emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, under a new rule finalized Tuesday. Environmental Protection Agency officials announced the rule during the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, aiming to demonstrate U.S. leadership on global warming despite Donald Trump’s recent election. Trump has vowed to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement, as he did during his first term, and his administration is expected to scrap the methane rule, along with dozens of other climate policies targeting the fossil fuel industry.

As long as the new federal fee remains in place, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement Tuesday, it will “improve efficiency in the oil and gas sector, support American jobs, protect clean air and reinforce U.S. leadership on the global stage.” Methane is responsible for nearly a third of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution began, according to the International Energy Agency. Although it breaks down much faster than carbon dioxide, it traps around 80 times as much heat in Earth’s atmosphere in the short term.

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President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, authorized the EPA to levy a fee on wasteful methane emissions from large oil and gas facilities. The fee starts at $900 per metric ton of emissions in 2024, increasing to $1,200 in 2025 and $1,500 in 2026.

If the fee remains in effect through 2035 — an unlikely scenario after Trump’s election — it would prevent 1.2 million metric tons of methane from entering the atmosphere, according to the EPA. That is the equivalent of taking nearly 8 million gasoline-powered cars off the nation’s roads for a year, the agency said.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/12/methane-fee-epa-cop29/