Source: Associated Press
The Biden administration has announced that oil and gas companies will now be charged a fee for emitting methane gas above a certain level. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the fee at a climate conference in Azerbaijan recently. Officially called the “Methane Emission Fee,” the fee aims to encourage oil and gas companies to invest in reducing methane emissions.
Methane, known as a super pollutant, is the second most abundant greenhouse gas and is more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. It can be released from landfills, coal mining, and agricultural activities. In America, the oil and natural gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions. Because of how it holds heat in our atmosphere, reduction of the gas would result in a significant change in atmospheric warming, according to the EPA.
This fee is the latest effort in President Joe Biden’s Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan. “The final Waste Emissions Charge is the latest in a series of actions under President Biden’s methane strategy to improve efficiency in the oil and gas sector, support American jobs, protect clean air, and reinforce U.S. leadership on the global stage,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.
The EPA estimates that this rule will result in a cumulative emissions reduction of 1.2 million metric tons of methane (34 million metric tons CO2-equivalent) through 2035 (the equivalent of taking 8 million gas-powered cars off of the road for a year) and the cumulative climate benefit of $2 billion.
The fee will not go into effect until next year and might meet resistance as President Joe Biden leaves the White House and former President Donald Trump returns. Trump has already stated his desire to roll back many of the climate and environmental initiatives started under the Biden administration, so this fee could become a target as he plays out his second term.
However, activists praise the fee and the Biden administration’s efforts to combat climate change. Activists see the fee as a way to hold these industries responsible for the pollution they produce, which is a major contributor to global warming.
“While we expect the next administration to recklessly greenlight fossil fuel extraction, it’s heartening to see this effort to make polluters pay for their leakage of the super climate pollutant methane,” said Maggie Coulter, a lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity.
