In the Permian Basin of West Texas, methane gas billows from oil wells. It blasts out of pressure valves on pipelines, wafts from sprawling gas processing plants and rises up in plumes when companies air out systems during routine maintenance in the nation’s largest oilfield.
More than a decade of efforts to bring these practices under control has yielded slim results. The Obama administration proposed methane standards in 2015, but the first Trump administration rolled them back. The Biden administration developed a detailed set of rules, which the second Trump administration blocked.
Now, the Trump administration plans to release its own proposed rules for methane this month, according to a recent announcement by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, continues to flow freely from the Permian Basin and other U.S. oilfields, even as global temperatures break new records.
We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web’s top headlines deliver the full story, for free.
Our #1 newsletter delivers the week’s climate and energy news – our original stories and top headlines from around the web.
Dan Gearino’s habit-forming weekly take on how to understand the energy transformation reshaping our world.
A once-a-week digest of the most pressing climate-related news, written by Kiley Price and released every Tuesday.
Don’t miss a beat. Get a daily email of our original, groundbreaking stories written by our national network of award-winning reporters.
Source link







