Possibly as early as this week, the EPA plans to publish a proposal to roll back Obama-era regulations about fastidious monitoring and repairing of methane leaks, piggybacking on the final draft rule from the Interior Department repealing limits on releasing and burning methane during drilling operations.
According to a Monday New York Times report, this is another huge blow to domestic attempts to curb climate change, along with the Trump administration’s weakening of laws regulating carbon dioxide pollution from vehicles and coal-fired power plants.
The new methane proposal would allow drillers to put off leak inspections for a year (whereas the old rule required checks every six months) and would double the time a company gets to fix a detected leak from 30 days to 60.
Per the Times, this proposal would allow oil and gas companies to earn back all the money they lost due to extra costs of stricter regulation under President Barack Obama.
But while industries may be saving on costs, the Earth is not. According to the Times, methane is one of the most pernicious greenhouse gasses, and is highly effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere. A hefty fraction—about one-third—of methane pollution is a result of oil and gas production.
This administration seems to be bound and determined to do the most harm to the most people it possibly can. In many cases, the motivation seems to be sheer spite.
This is one of those cases. Back in the seventies oil companies loved to brag about all the things they were doing for the environment - of course, all of it was mandated by law, but, hey, why mention that. It made for great ad campaigns.
This is penny wise and pound foolish on the public-relations front.
Methane’s greenhouse effect is about 23 times that of carbon dioxide. And there’s the fact that global warming is already moving faster than we are. I’m trying to remember the economic phenomenon associated with this kind of behavior, but basically imagine some guys in a lifeboat with food and water. They have no idea if they are going to be rescued or not. But they assume rescue is imminent so they use up the resources quickly instead of rationing to extend their resources as long as possible, or at least to the point of bearable discomfort. Usually it takes several days before the rationing idea takes hold, at which point they may have burned through most of their resources. At that point, however, pain management is out of the question. By the same token, the cost of adjusting to a system where we are introducing zero old carbon has risen over recent decades as we go further along in venusiforming the atmosphere and acidifying the oceans. Just think of this policy as the first hour in the lifeboat and there’s even a case of beer! Good times.
With Trump it is most assuredly spite in his endless drive to undo all things Obama. With the rest of the GOP and its beneficiaries in the corporate world it is their endless drive to realize short term profit without any concern about long term effects.
Remember global warming is a “Chinese hoax”. I know because the man God chose to be POTUS said so. Plus God told Noah (of the Ark fame) that he would never destroy the Earth again.
Sleep well my friends - we and the Earth are in good hands.