House passes CRA resolution to nullify BLM’s methane emissions rule
The US House of Representatives approved a Congressional Review Act resolution on Feb. 3 to rescind the US Bureau of Land Management’s methane emissions limits for oil and gas activity on public and Indian tribal land by 221 to 191 votes. Three Democrats joined Republicans in support of the measure, while 11 Republicans voted with most of the Democrats against it.
“The contortions BLM went through to say [it] had the legal authority [are] almost embarrassing,” said Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who introduced the disapproval resolution, H.J. Res. 36, earlier in the week. He called the rule “illegal” and “costly.”
Committee Democrats had called for the resolution’s defeat. They disputed Republican assertions that BLM’s methane rule encroached on authorities of the US Environmental Protection Agency and state governments to regulate air quality because the final rule fell under BLM’s responsibility to minimize the waste of public resources (OGJ Online, Feb. 1, 2017).
Oil and gas trade associations and other business groups welcomed the House’s action.
“The rule’s unnecessary requirements could result in the shut-in of a number of currently producing wells, reducing revenues to the federal treasury and the supply of affordable energy,” said American Petroleum Institute Pres. Jack N. Gerard. He cited “the broad impacts to US oil and gas production on Indian and federal lands, the lack of authority by BLM to regulate air quality, and the fact that US producers already [have high incentives] to capture methane for delivery to American consumers,” calling the BLM rule “redundant and unnecessary.”
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance in Denver, thanked Bishop “for his leadership.” The next step will take place in the Senate, where Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John A. Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has introduced the CRA resolution, she noted. “After that, we’ll focus on who becomes director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as BLM, once Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) is confirmed as Interior Secretary,” Sgamma told OGJ.
Pointing out that “reducing methane emissions is in the best interest of every oil and natural gas producer,” Independent Petroleum Association of America Pres. Barry Russell said, “This new BLM rule is aimed more at shutting down production than creating a workable solution for industry.”
Russell noted that slow BLM permitting aggravates problems of moving gas away from production sites.
“If this rule is not repealed, it will most certainly mean a decline in production on federal lands as marginal wells will be forced to shut in, which will also lead to a decline in revenue to the US Treasury from royalty payments,” he said.
The American Chemistry Council said it supported the House’s action because BLM’s regulation duplicated several state efforts to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas wells.
“Industry and states such as Colorado, Wyoming, and North Dakota are making progress and could do even more if expeditiously granted permits to build infrastructure that would capture the gas and deliver it to market,” it said.
An opponent of the vote, Jesse Prentice-Dunn, advocacy director at the Center for Western Priorities in Denver, said the move “checked the box on another major agenda item for big oil and gas corporations at the expense of American taxpayers” and argued the change “will simply let gas go up in smoke.”
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
Nick Snow
NICK SNOW covered oil and gas in Washington for more than 30 years. He worked in several capacities for The Oil Daily and was founding editor of Petroleum Finance Week before joining OGJ as its Washington correspondent in September 2005 and becoming its full-time Washington editor in October 2007. He retired from OGJ in January 2020.