READ MORE: EPA drops regulation for contaminant linked to infant brain damage Preventing methane leaks from well-site equipment and pipelines has become important for regulators because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 20-year period, according to climate researchers. Pennsylvania is of prime importance in November’s presidential election, and the natural gas industry is already playing a central role in TV attack ads being aired in the state by Trump’s allies. Reflecting the ever-present politics of the presidential campaign, Wheeler’s statement also cast blame onto the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, saying that “regulatory burdens put into place by the Obama-Biden Administration fell heavily on small and medium-sized energy businesses.” “EPA has been working hard to fulfill President Trump’s promise to cut burdensome and ineffective regulations for our domestic energy industry,” Wheeler said in a statement. The White House took the event to Pittsburgh, home to the headquarters of many companies exploring the Marcellus Shale, the booming natural gas reservoir that vaulted Pennsylvania to the nation’s No. The EPA first proposed the rollback last year, accusing the Obama administration of enacting a legally flawed rule, and agency officials said it would save companies tens of millions of dollars a year in compliance requirements without changing the trajectory of methane emissions.īut states, including California, and a coalition of environmental advocacy groups have warned that the changes would be illegal - not to mention a setback in the fight against climate change - and are expected to quickly sue to block it. (AP) - President Donald Trump’s administration is undoing Obama-era rules designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas fields and pipelines, formalizing the changes Thursday in the heart of the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir and in the premier presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania.Īndrew Wheeler, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, signed the rollback of the 2016 methane emissions rule in Pittsburgh as the agency touted the Trump administration’s efforts to “strengthen and promote American energy.”
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