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The Biden administration unveiled a new regulatory proposal Friday that may introduce a new tax on the fossil fuel business, punishing producers that exceed a sure degree of methane emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which spearheaded the proposal, stated it can assist “tackle wasteful methane emissions” from the oil and gas sector, encouraging services with the very best emissions ranges to fulfill or exceed increased ranges of efficiency. The proposed guidelines would create the so-called Waste Emissions Charge, which begins at $900 per metric ton of wasteful emissions in 2024, and will increase to $1,200 for 2025 and $1,500 for 2026 and past.
“Under President Biden’s leadership, EPA is delivering on a comprehensive strategy to reduce wasteful methane emissions that endanger communities and fuel the climate crisis,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan stated in an announcement. “Today’s proposal, when finalized, will support a complementary set of technology standards and historic resources from the Inflation Reduction Act, to incentivize industry innovation and prompt action.”
“We are laser-focused on working collectively with companies, states and communities to ensure that America leads in deploying technologies and innovations that aid in the development of a clean energy economy,” he continued.
President Biden talks to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan throughout a White House occasion on environmental justice earlier this 12 months. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The announcement was instantly applauded by inexperienced teams and Democratic congressional leaders, together with Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Tom Carper, D-Del., who stated the proposal would “slow climate change and protect our one and only planet.”
Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund, added that implementing a methane charge was a “common sense” transfer to chop emissions throughout the economic system.
For years, environmentalists and Democrats have known as for stricter laws concentrating on methane, which activists confer with as a “super pollutant” and which is way more potent than carbon dioxide. In its announcement Friday, the EPA added that decreasing methane emissions was among the many most necessary actions the U.S. may take to “slow the rate of rapidly rising global temperatures.”
However, EPA’s proposal was met with disapproval from the fossil fuel business, which characterised it as a “punitive tax increase.”
A natural gas flare burns close to an oil pump jack on the New Harmony Oil Field in Grayville, Illinois, on June 19, 2022. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg by way of Getty Images)
“As the world looks to U.S. energy producers to provide stability in an increasingly unstable world, this punitive tax increase is a serious misstep that undermines America’s energy advantage,” American Petroleum Institute senior vp of coverage, economics and regulatory affairs Dustin Meyer stated Friday.
“While we support smart federal methane regulation, this proposal creates an incoherent, confusing regulatory regime that will only stifle innovation and undermine our ability to meet rising energy demand,” Meyer added. “We look forward to working with Congress to repeal the IRA’s misguided new tax on American energy.”
OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS PERMITTING PLUMMETS TO 2-DECADE LOW UNDER BIDEN
EPA’s actions come a month after it unveiled separate environmental laws concentrating on methane emissions throughout the latest United Nations local weather summit in Dubai.
President Biden’s administration has taken purpose on the oil and gas sector repeatedly throughout his tenure as a part of its sweeping inexperienced vitality agenda to decarbonize the economic system. (Getty Images)
Those laws embody rigorous new requirements that pressure the vitality business to slash methane emissions, primarily by incorporating superior expertise like pollution-control gear and aerial screening, sensor networks and satellites. It additional phases in a requirement to remove routine flaring of natural gas, the discharge of gas produced throughout oil drilling operations that lack seize expertise.
EPA stated its methane charge unveiled Friday was designed to work in tandem with the laws finalized final month.
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“The Waste Emissions Charge will help encourage the oil and gas industry to stay on target to lower emissions,” EPA stated in its announcement. “Oil and natural gas operations with methane emissions in excess of the emissions intensity levels established in the Inflation Reduction Act can reduce or eliminate any charge by deploying readily available technologies to reduce harmful and wasteful emissions.”
“This program will help to level the playing field for industry leaders already employing best practices and drive near-term opportunities for more widespread methane reductions while EPA and states work toward full implementation of the Clean Air Act standards,” it continued.
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