EPA delays proposal to regulate methane emissions until 2015

The US Environmental Protection Agency is delaying plans to issue proposals to regulate methane emissions from oil and gas operations until 2015, OGJ has learned.

It reached the decision a week after the American Lung Association issued results of a survey it commissioned that found 63% of respondents supporting the agency establishing the first federal methane emissions limits.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Perception Insight surveyed 1,000 registered voters nationally by telephone Nov. 13-18, ALA said on Dec. 10 as it released findings that also showed 43% favorable impressions of EPA and 42% unfavorable feelings toward the oil and gas industry.

"The poll shows that a large, bipartisan majority of American voters support a methane pollution standard that will protect public health," Perception Insight President Marc DelSignore said. "Support increases, in particular, with Republicans who move from being tied on the initial question to a 14-point margin in support after hearing arguments from both sides.”

Speakers at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference two days earlier outlined a broad range of methane emissions differences which need to be addressed before trying to impose national regulations (OGJ Online, Dec. 8, 2014).

American Petroleum Institute officials previously said that domestic producers are reducing wellhead methane emissions already and don’t need ill-conceived, overly prescriptive federal regulations (OGJ Online, Dec. 5, 2014).

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].