Twenty-One AGs Filed Comments Opposing EPA’s Effort to Eliminate All Regulation of Oil & Gas Methane Emissions

NOVEMBER 22, 2019

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra led a coalition of 21 attorneys general in filing comments in opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) September 2019 proposal to eliminate all regulation of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The proposal would rescind sections of the New Source Performance Standards for methane emissions under the Clean Air Act for the industry, which would also eliminate the EPA’s responsibility under the Clean Air Act to regulate existing sources of methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. Existing sources in the oil and gas industry account for approximately ninety percent of methane emissions in the industry. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas that has eighty-four to eighty-six the climate change-forcing effect of carbon dioxide.