WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Office of U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) released a letter that Senator King wrote to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler to express his firm opposition to announced regulatory changes that would rollback rules requiring controls on the release of methane by oil and gas companies. Methane emissions are a major contributor to climate change, trapping atmospheric heat much more harmfully than carbon dioxide. In his letter, Senator King argues that these “regressive environmental actions” contradict the EPA’s stated mission and ignore the agency’s own research, and urges Administrator Wheeler to scrap this harmful rule change.

“By your own admission, human actions are contributing to climate change, and experts agree climate change is a serious challenge that will have catastrophic consequences if we do not act to slow emissions that are warming the planet,” wrote Senator King. “This includes limiting methane emissions, which traps atmospheric heat 84-87 times more effectively than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period…

“That is why it is shocking that the EPA has announced this week that it plans to undo regulations that help curtail methane emissions and detect methane leaks at gas and oil facilities, even with full knowledge of the harm that methane emissions cause and that gas and oil companies are the biggest emitters of methane in the U.S,” continued Senator King. “These actions by the agency tasked with protecting the environment are contrary to its core mission.

Earlier this week, Senator King condemned the proposed change earlier this week, calling it “environmental sabotage.” Last month, Senator King pressed the importance of reducing methane leaks, urging the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review and improve federal technologies to detect methane emissions. The letter raises concerns that in light of the coronavirus’s economic impacts, lower natural gas prices will decrease the incentive for producers to capture and sell natural gas (which is primarily methane), and instead vent it into the atmosphere.

The full letter can be read below or downloaded HERE.

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Dear Administrator Wheeler:

As you know, the EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment, and in doing so, to enforce laws such as the Clean Air Act. This law was the nation’s first comprehensive pollution control law that imposed sweeping and ambitious restrictions on emissions of air pollutants, and was championed by Maine’s Senator Ed Muskie, whose Senate seat I now hold. It is on behalf of the people of Maine and in honor of Senator Muskie’s commitment to a better environment that I write, appalled at the regressive environmental actions of the EPA this week.

By your own admission, human actions are contributing to climate change, and experts agree climate change is a serious challenge that will have catastrophic consequences if we do not act to slow emissions that are warming the planet. This includes limiting methane emissions, which traps atmospheric heat 84-87 times more effectively than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. According to the EPA:

Over the last two centuries, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, largely due to human-related activities. Because methane is both a powerful greenhouse gas and short-lived compared to carbon dioxide, achieving significant reductions would have a rapid and significant effect on atmospheric warming potential.

That is why it is shocking that the EPA has announced this week that it plans to undo regulations that help curtail methane emissions and detect methane leaks at gas and oil facilities, even with full knowledge of the harm that methane emissions cause and that gas and oil companies are the biggest emitters of methane in the U.S. These actions by the agency tasked with protecting the environment are contrary to its core mission.

I urge you to use your position as the head of the EPA, and look to the agency’s own research and analysis to continue to limit methane emissions instead of promoting emissions that will only hasten the devastating impacts of climate change and sabotage the environment.