<> on July 26, 2013 in Williston, North Dakota.
From Inside Climate News:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10052017/methane-climate-rule-oil-gas-flaring-congress-vote-rejects
The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bid to overturn an Obama-era rule that limits climate-warming methane leaks from oil and gas operations on public lands, but the industry, along with its allies in Congress, says it will continue challenging the rule.
The surprise 49-51 vote handed a defeat to the industry, which has pushed Congress to undo the rule under the Congressional Review Act, a little-used law that allows lawmakers to kill rules with a simple majority vote.
The rule, issued by the Department of the Interior at the end of the Obama administration, limits venting and flaring of methane from natural gas and oil drilling operations, a restriction that officials estimated would prevent 180,000 tons of methane from leaking into the atmosphere every year. Methane, the main component of natural gas, has over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
“The rule is so basic. All it’s asking for is for oil and gas companies to capture their methane waste, which is now going up into the atmosphere as carbon pollution, and really potent carbon pollution at that, and put it back into their pipes and, potentially, back into the market,” said Lena Moffitt, who directs the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuel campaign. “It’s just asking them to plug their leaks.”
The oil and gas industries, emboldened by the Donald Trump administration and backed by conservative groups, said the rule duplicated existing state rules and would lead to higher energy costs, job losses and less energy production on public lands.