EPA To Rescind Methane Regulations For Oil and Gas (thehill.com) 118
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will sign and issue new rules this week that will get rid of certain methane gas emission requirements for oil and gas producers, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Unidentified administration officials told the newspaper that the new rules will include getting rid of requirements for producers to have systems and processes to find methane leaks. They will also end EPA oversight of smog and emissions from pipelines and storage sites and lessen monitoring and reporting requirements for certain pollutants, the Journal reported. The new rules have most of the major elements of proposals from 2018 and 2019, according to the newspaper.
In 2019, the agency proposed eliminating requirements for oil and gas companies to install technology for monitoring methane emissions from pipelines, wells and facilities. In 2018, it proposed reducing the frequency of monitoring methane emissions of oil and gas wells to every two years and compressor stations that help transport natural gas to just once a year. However, the Journal reported Monday that the administration would forgo the measures that would have reduced the inspection frequency due to difficulty in justifying them legally.
In 2019, the agency proposed eliminating requirements for oil and gas companies to install technology for monitoring methane emissions from pipelines, wells and facilities. In 2018, it proposed reducing the frequency of monitoring methane emissions of oil and gas wells to every two years and compressor stations that help transport natural gas to just once a year. However, the Journal reported Monday that the administration would forgo the measures that would have reduced the inspection frequency due to difficulty in justifying them legally.
face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty sure that's been the mantra since 20 January, 2017.
Re: face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:2)
That was the mantra for about a year prior too.
Re:face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:5, Interesting)
... so Destroy The Joint
Yeah, I think I can sum up the Trump administration's effect on our government with this Good Place quote:
"Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem."
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I don't think so. Don't confuse rioters with protesters.
Re:face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:4, Informative)
Police: Richmond riots instigated by white supremacists disguised as Black Lives Matter [wsls.com]
Police: 'Umbrella Man' was a white supremacist trying to incite George Floyd rioting [startribune.com]
Re:face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean the three blocks in Portland where the protests have been happening and things have NOT been burning?
The riots were still a bit much until they discovered the cause - perhaps we should arrest the police and white nationalists that kept instigating them?
Re: face it - you're gonna get voted out (Score:2)
You've clearly not been to Portland. The whole city is not burning and it hasn't been 70 days. It was a few incidents on a few occasions. The city is just fine, I was there last month. You've been duped, buddy!
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Look for more like Aliso Canyon in the next decade (Score:2)
Or until someone sane fixes the regulations back up.
https://www.caloes.ca.gov/ICES... [ca.gov]
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Or until someone sane fixes the regulations back up.
https://www.caloes.ca.gov/ICES... [ca.gov]
So do you think they timed the deregulation of pipeline emissions monitoring to coincide with that probable natural gas explosion in Baltimore, or was that just providence?
Re:Look for more like Aliso Canyon in the next dec (Score:5, Insightful)
You fucking seppos are fucking insane, that gas pipework should have been shut of years ago and the company forced to lay new pipework, no choice. That you let it slide on by year after year, wow, now that's corruption. What is wrong with Americans, are you all stupid to put up with this shit, what the fuck is wrong with you, fuck the corporation supplying gas, shutdown their pipework until it is replaced, you don't need terrorists, your fucking corporations already are and they will kill anyone who gets in the way of their profits.
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"It is extremely difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair "The Jungle"
More info needed, really.... (Score:1, Insightful)
It's easy to make any kind of anti-pollution roll-back look like you're being terribly reckless. But what I guess we don't know are the details of how worthwhile the existing standard really are?
I mean, if you get rid of some devices to measure methane emissions but allow "alternative" measurement methods, maybe that's just a much cheaper to do a "good enough" job of it?
And I'd also say we'd need to know how many of these emissions were happening with oil and gas production in the first place. I mean, if t
Re:More info needed, really.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to make any kind of anti-pollution roll-back look like you're being terribly reckless. But what I guess we don't know are the details of how worthwhile the existing standard really are?
I like to think that if the rollbacks are so saintly, specific information on the ineffectiveness of the regulations would be easy to come by for the WSJ and there wouldn't be much of a need for the the officials within the Trump administration to remain unnamed, shrouded in secrecy.
Trump burned the benefit of the doubt long ago. At this point, I think a reasonable person would say it can be safely assumed that moves like this one are exactly what they appear to be until proven otherwise.
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The standards are bad enough to force significant lobbying by the oil and gas industry to have them revoked. That alone is probably a good indication that the standards were doing something positive for people.
But anyway:
And I'd also say we'd need to know how many of these emissions were happening with oil and gas production in the first place.
Indeed. Now if only the EPA wasn't rescinding the regulations which mandated the monitoring and reporting of such emissions. To be clear they aren't completely eliminating them but the new EPA regulations put a far higher regulatory burden on monitoring and reporting than the previous ones
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If you make the regulators and their extended families live downwind of the sites they are regulating, you'd find out real quick just how unnecessary these regulations are (or aren't as the case may be).
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Better yet,
If for every X amount released they C levels, owners, and directors get X amount of Prison time.
If they prop it up with fake C levels then the top 10 people getting paid get the jail time.
Not even bothering to pretend (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not even bothering to pretend (Score:4, Insightful)
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Piss on the bed seems more his style.
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the fact remains that 16 years of Bush administrations
12 years of Bush administrations. HW only served one term before losing to Bill Clinton.
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Mark my words: If Biden wins the next election, Trump will either be pardoned or not prosecuted for any crimes while in office.
None of them even bother to pretend whose side they play for, and it isn't ours.
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I'd say that's a given, considering that when she was presented with clear evidence of frelling **war crimes** by the Bush Madministration Pelosi's decision was "Impeachment is off the table." After all, if the Democrats don't protect the Republican criminals then the Republicans won't protect the Democrat criminals.
Re: Not even bothering to pretend (Score:2)
Not if he's prosecuted in New York.
Sure. Why limit incompetence to COVID-19? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump's legacy will be measured in the number of people he kills indirectly. Apparently Trump realizes he is going to lose, so he is pulling out all of the stops before he gets voted out.
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No you don't and neither does anyone else. You measure Obama how Trump tells you to.
Only 5 more months.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Only 5 more months.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only 5 more months.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's possible permanent damage to our relationships with our allies. I'm hoping that our allies realize that this whole Trump farce was just that, a farce, and that they shouldn't hold the entire United States responsible for that. That being said it'll still probably take quite some time and effort to rebuild the relationships we have with our allies.
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And how exactly is pretending that everything is going to be okay helping?
Face it, most of Trump's voters are perfectly fine with him being an amoral piece of shit because either this kind of personality resonates with themselves or because they didn't care about the cost as long as they could stick it to the other side. And even those of them who are not happy about Trump, are only unhappy about the looks of the whole.
These people are not suddenly going away even if they lose this election. Matter of fact,
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Oh well it's TOO MUCH EFFORT to bother having any sort of hope for the future so let's just give up and watch the country burn to the ground.
Is there some reason you're a gigantic pussy who can't even be bothered to poke some keys on a keyboard supporting the idea that the United States is worth saving? Or are you some foreign operative and your assignment is to sow as much dismay and apathy amongst Americans as possible, ultimately so we sit here and do nothing while corruption and bullshit wrecks everything? If the former, FIX YOUR SHIT. If the latter, FUCK OFF AND DIE. I have no use for either type.
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Neither. I just wish the USA exactly what you wish me - to fuck off and die.
Re:Only 5 more months.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world realizes that Trump is just one man and the US will get new leadership eventually.
But we also realize that Biden is just one man and the US will get new leadership eventually.
The US has shown beyond any doubt that they are not to be relied upon because the country is, at large, schizophrenic, and will go from being a helpful friendly ally to an antagonistic asshole in a matter of days.
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Voted by tens of millions...
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Yet not getting more votes than his opponent...
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Yet not getting more votes than his opponent...
He didn't lose the popular vote by a massive percentage. Therefore, of the Americans who can be arsed to get up and do something, nearly half of them are disgusting shitbirds. That's not comforting anyone.
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any other sane country
s/other //
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No: you miss the point, completely. The fact he was voted by tens of millions is the problem. That problem doesn't go away if a few more voted differently, and it doesn't go away with a new and better president.
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Exactly like what Obama inherited from Bush before him. It's by design, and the worse the Republicans make it for a Democratic president the better their election chances are on the next cycle. It's not just Trump and it won't end with Trump, even if the worst of it might be over for a while.
Curiously, Democrats are the true conservatives, they work to preserve what the country has been while their opposition works to dismantle and extract the country's wealth. Even with regard to reproductive rights Dem
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If this were a one-off, then sure. However, were you around for Bushie? That's what happened back then, too. The republicans are still FURIOUS that we went around the world apologizing and trying to shore up relations with our allies once Obama got in.
Now that we've elected someone somehow EVEN MORE nutso elitist and destructive than GWB, the rest of the world is apt to pass on relying on the U.S. anymore.
Trump is ushering in the end of America as we know it, and I'd advise anyone with sense to start seriou
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If you're gonna demand others make a case to you after this pile of dogshit projection, at least have the decency to post with an account name.
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That 'person' (if you can call them that) and all like them know their day is over, and like a spoiled 2-year-old who was just informed they won't be having icecream and cake for dinner, they're kicking and screaming and throwing themselves on the ground, having a fit over it. Just hope they're all at least as much cowards as I think they are, so when J
Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
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While governor of Texas Shrub had their environmental monitoring of chemical plants go from mandatory with regular inspections to completely voluntary with self inspections. In the first year there was a (IIRC) 55% drop in reported chemical leaks. Shrub proudly pointed at that as an accomplishment, and Texas voters apparently were stupid enough to agree.
The Facts (Score:2, Interesting)
Having worked in the environmental software industry since before the GHG rules were put into effect I applaud the curtailment of the overreach by the EPA in this area. Although I make a living partly off of this stuff I have been disgusted by the unchecked advance of the EPA in their implementation of the GHG program. Parts of the calculation process are fraught with estimations, emission factors that are not precise and inclusion of insignificant calculations. In most cases it is the combustion of fuels t
Re:The Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're right. Instead of doing something to fight climate change, it's best to do nothing.
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Well the reality is the most profitable industry on earth largely has stopped giving a shit what the USA do. Many of them have announced emissions programs not to meet local regulations but to placate shareholders and to use as low hanging fruit ammunition against the greenies.
As for the GP's assertion that the industry already does testing in the USA. Yeah that was due to the EPA regulations.
Re:The Facts (Score:5, Funny)
Thank goodness everyone can go back to puking one of the strongest GHGs unimpeded. For a minute I was worried that America might actually be run by people who understood science. Thanks for correcting me and showing it's a country run by sociopaths who would probably cook and eat their children if they couldn't heat up the lower atmosphere.
Re:The Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
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While I would say individuals live in communities and may care about pollution, people as a group will not care until directly effected. As the results of pollution can take a long time to directly effect individuals, its not uncommon that they won't care until its too late. A great example is the water quality where I live. Business owners say it's not 'too' bad, but the state EPA wanted to put in a public sewer to stop waste from entering the fractured water table on top of the oil spill from the 80s. The
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The EPA estimates that the elimination of the methane reduction steps could result in 370,000 short tons of methane not being eliminated (8.4MM t CO2e). Since we are dealing with fugitive emissions this number in itself is highly suspicious. By definition, we do not know the scope of the issue, so the EPA cannot possibly know the net potential benefit.
That's why it's an estimate.
Gas producers, transporters and storage facilities already do LDAR surveys and have both a monetary and safety driven incentive to keep leaks to a minimum.
The monetary incentive just went away for all those cases in which it's cheaper to simply let it escape.
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This is a Trump-bashing comment thread. Fact based assessments have no place in the discussion. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is left as an exercise to the reader.
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I just learned that protecting the environment is "overreach" when the EPA does it. This poster seems really intelligent and insightful.
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You'd think that environmental protection was part of their mandate or something, go figure.
Trump said that no one knows (Score:2)
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obligatory (Score:2)
Is the swamp drained yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
President Grab 'Em By The Wherever promised to "drain the swamp." The first thing he did was hire a parcel of alligators.
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The Orange Asshole drained the swamp by filling to the brim and overflowing it.
Re:Is the swamp drained yet? (Score:5, Funny)
He had to drain the swamp because his chosen cabinet members were at the very bottom.
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We're making progress; people admit there is a swamp now. :)
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Oh Elizabeth, did you not know of the swamp until Trump told you? Did he need to make it bigger so you could see it?
EPA wants to reduce frequency of monitoring? (Score:2)
But you can eat the rich... (Score:2)