White House Unveils Plans to Cut Methane Emissions

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Friday announced a strategy to start slashing emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas released by landfills, cattle and leaks from oil and natural gas production.

The methane strategy is the latest step in a series of White House actions aimed at addressing climate change without legislation from Congress. Individually, most of the steps will not be enough to drastically reduce the United States' contribution to global warming. But the Obama administration hopes that collectively they will build political support for more substantive domestic actions while signaling to other countries that the United States is serious about tackling global warming.

In a 2009 United Nations climate change accord, President Obama pledged that the U.S. would lower its greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. 'This methane strategy is one component, one set of actions to get there,' said Dan Utech, the president's special assistant for energy and climate change, in a phone call with reporters.

Environmental advocates have long urged the Obama administration to target methane emissions. Most of the planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution in the United States comes from carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning coal, oil and natural gas. Methane accounts for just 9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution - but the gas is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on future global warming.

And methane emissions are projected to increase in the United States, as the nation enjoys a boom in oil and natural gas production, thanks to breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing technology. A study published in the journal Science last month found that methane is leaking from oil and natural gas drilling sites and pipelines at rates 50 percent higher than previously thought. As he works to tackle climate change, Mr. Obama administration has generally supported the natural gas production boom, since natural gas, when burned for electricity, produces just half the greenhouse gas pollution of coal-fired electricity.

Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have campaigned against the new boom in natural gas production, warning that it could lead to dangerous new levels of methane pollution, thus undercutting the climate benefits of gas. The oil and gas industry has resisted pushes to regulate methane leaks from oil and gas production, saying it could slow down production.

A White House official said on Friday that this spring, the Environmental Protection Agency will assess several potentially significant sources of methane and other emissions from the oil and gas sector, and that by this fall the E.P.A 'will determine how best to pursue further methane reductions from these sources.' If the E.P.A. decides to develop additional regulations, it will complete those regulations by the end of 2016 - just before Mr. Obama leaves office.

Among the steps tha administration announced on Friday to address methane pollution:

The Interior Department will propose updated standards to reduce venting and flaring of methane from oil and gas production on public lands.

In April, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management will begin to gather public comment on the development of a program for the capture and sale of methane produced by coal mines on lands leased by the federal government.

This summer, the E.P.A. will propose updated standards to reduce methane from new landfills and take public comment on whether to update standards for existing landfills.

In June, the Agriculture Department, the Energy Department and the E.P.A. will jointly release a 'biogas roadmap' aimed at accelerating adoption of methane digesters, machines that reduce methane emissions from cattle, in order to cut dairy sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.

Advocates of climate action generally praised the plan. 'Cutting methane emissions will be especially critical to climate protection as the US develops its huge shale gas reserves, gaining the full greenhouse gas benefit from the switch away from coal,' said Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate change aide, now with the German Marshall Fund.

Howard Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs for the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil and gas companies, said he hopes the steps won't lead to new regulations on his industry. 'We think regulation is not necessary at this time. People are using a lot more natural gas in the country, and that's reducing greenhouse gas,' he said.