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New US guidelines seek to suppress methane from oil and gas on public lands

The Biden administration on Wednesday said it had finalized guidelines focused on limiting methane leakages from oil and gas drilling on public lands.

The policy complements efforts at other federal companies to reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that tends to leakage from drill sites and pipelines and contributes to climate change.

Almost a tenth of U.S. oil and gas production takes place on federal lands, mainly in Western states like New Mexico and Wyoming.

The guidelines require oil and gas drillers to develop strategies to find leakages, make repair work and decrease waste. They should likewise pay royalties for natural gas lost through flaring or venting if those losses are thought about to have actually been avoidable.

The Interior Department stated the rule would conserve billions of cubic feet of gas that otherwise may have been vented, flared or dripped, generating more than $50 million in additional royalty payments to the federal government each year.

This last rule, which updates 40-year-old guidelines, enhances the Biden-Harris administration's objectives to prevent waste, secure our environment, and make sure a fair return to American taxpayers, Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland said in a. statement.

The brand-new rules follow years of legal wrangling over methane. regulations crafted by previous President Barack Obama's. administration. The regulation from Interior's Bureau of Land. Management (BLM) focuses on waste prevention, a location over which. it has legal authority.

Oil and gas industry trade group American Petroleum. Institute (API) stated it was reviewing the guideline to consider. whether BLM had actually overstepped its authority.

API supports a clever regulatory framework for lowering. methane emissions, but overlapping regulations and absence of. coordination between policymakers might hinder progress, create. unneeded barriers to development on federal lands and result. in regulative incoherence, API vice president of upstream. policy, Holly Hopkins, stated in a declaration.

Environmental groups invited the brand-new policy.

Acting to restrict methane waste on public lands deals. a win-win-win for taxpayers, producers and neighborhoods harmed by. this waste and associated contamination, Jon Goldstein, senior. director of regulatory and legislative affairs at Environmental. Defense Fund said in a declaration.

(source: Reuters)