New Mexico's bold plan on methane pollution should serve as a model
While the U.S. and Russia may not agree on much, together they lead the world as the top emitters of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas that is soaring to record levels in the earth's atmosphere. But New Mexico, the third-biggest U.S. oil producer and a leading methane emitter, just finalized ambitious new rules to curtail methane pollution. It means other states and the Biden administration, which has promised to take on methane, can now look to the Land of Enchantment for the way forward.
New Mexico's rule, which follows over a year of public debate and is part of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's (D) aggressive climate plan, calls for the oil and gas industry to capture 98 percent of its methane by 2026. This will require staunching the wasteful venting and flaring of natural gas, which is comprised almost entirely of methane. Today, it is discharged from thousands of wells as a cost-savings measure.
New Mexico is also preparing a companion rule to address widespread leaking of methane from across the state's oil and gas supply chain, which includes part of the mammoth Permian Basin it shares with Texas. The leaking occurs at well pads, pipelines, compressors, storage facilities and more, a system-wide problem that creates methane plumes large enough to detect from space. The draft rule on leaking, expected in May, would require regular inspection and repair of leaky equipment, which today goes largely unmitigated as another cost-savings measure.
Controlling methane is a climate imperative. The gas has 80 times the heat-trapping potential of carbon dioxide, making it a potent driver of climate change. NASA says it has fueled a whopping 25 percent of human-caused global warming to date, a proportion projected to climb. And Environmental Protection Agency estimates, which are increasingly panned as too low, show methane pollution has been rising roughly since the U.S. oil boom began in the early 2000s.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-mexico-s-bold-plan-on-methane-pollution-should-serve-as-a-model/ar-BB1fPAez
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