BRUNSWICK, ME – On the heels of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that details recent efforts and obstacles in reducing methane emissions, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called for Congress and the Biden administration to step up their efforts to counter the harmful emissions. The GAO’s Federal Actions Needed to Address Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Development report – requested by Senator King and colleagues in 2020 – shows that federal agencies’ efforts have been hindered by court challenges and regulatory rollbacks under the previous administration, that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements could be better tailored to encourage adoption of new methane-reducing technologies, and that the EPA is likely significantly underestimating emissions of the gas.

“Methane emissions are one of the greatest threats to our climate and our public health, trapping more than 80 times as much atmospheric heat as carbon dioxide,” said Senator King. “Today’s GAO report shows that more needs to be done to confront the danger of methane, and reinforces that we must take urgent, significant action to address the crisis. Congress needs to step up our efforts to address these harmful emissions, and the administration must do more. I also urge the private sector to take a long look at this report and commit to zero methane emissions from oil and gas development. I appreciate the GAO’s work on this report, but this is just the first step – now we must build on this momentum to advance commonsense climate solutions that will protect our planet for this generation and all those to come.”

The Federal Actions Needed to Address Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Development report found that:

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have faced significant legal and administrative challenges in their implementation of methane emission regulations.
• While several private sector entities are voluntarily taking actions to reduce methane emissions, few operators have applied to the EPA for approval to use alternative methane-reducing technologies, in part because EPA requirements may be overly onerous and hinder the adoption of innovative approaches for detecting and reducing methane emissions.
• Since the alternative means of emissions limitation process was established in 2016, EPA has received one application and had not, as of November 2021, approved it.
• The EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program may be significantly underestimating methane emissions, mainly due to the contribution of low occurrence, high impact super-emitting events.
• State methane regulations may provide useful examples for forthcoming BLM regulations, including state regulations which require gas capture targets.

A member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and a founding member of the Climate Solutions Caucus, Senator King has been one of the Senate’s most prominent advocates for stronger methane emissions. Along with pushing for the GAO review of methane leaks from oil and gas developments, he led a recently signed law to reinstate EPA standards for methane emissions from the oil and gas industry and undo the Trump administration’s harmful 2020 Methane Rescission Rule. In the hours before the Senate’s vote on the law to restore the methane regulations, Senator King spoke on the Senate floor in support of the move. Senator King has also pressed Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on the importance of taking action to limit methane releases on public lands, called for the Biden Administration to restore these regulations.