The Biden administration is moving to charge oil and gas companies a new fee on methane emissions, but opponents of the rule suggest such efforts could be short-lived under incoming Republican leadership.
On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will try to “incentivize” the oil and gas industry to reduce methane emissions by imposing a Waste Emissions Charge, allowed under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Under the Biden administration’s new rule, certain oil and gas facilities would be charged $900 per metric ton of “wasteful” emissions in CY 2024, $1,200 for CY 2025 and $1,500 for CY 2026.
The charge would be applied to high-emitting facilities and those with emissions of “more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year to the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program,” according to the EPA.
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A flag with the Environmental Protection Agency logo flies at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Robert Alexander)
Opponents of the new rule are already making plans to avert the proposed methane fee.
In a press release Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute released a policy road map for the incoming Trump administration and hit back against the EPA’s final rule.
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Included in the suggested plan was for the Trump administration to “end EPA’s methane fee that misinterprets Congressional intent and does little beyond increasing the cost of production for American oil and natural gas.”
Pumpjacks operate in the Belridge oil field near McKittrick, California, on Nov. 3, 2021. (Mario Tama)
The Western Caucus also slammed the charge, but highlighted that the incoming administration will make changes to the current EPA’s agenda.
“The lame-duck Biden Administration will do everything they can to sabotage traditional energy sources in their final days,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash. “The EPA’s Waste Emissions Charge rule will further increase energy costs by placing an effective tax on America’s oil and gas industry that will be passed directly to consumers. Luckily, this administration’s days are numbered, and I look forward to helping a unified Republican government reduce energy costs across rural and Western America.”
President-elect Trump recently tapped former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to head the EPA under his administration, which is likely to derail many of the Biden administration’s energy policies.
President-elect Trump selected former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to head his administration’s Environmental Protection Agency. (Al Drago)
The EPA has suggested, meanwhile, that the Waste Emissions Charge will improve the vital industry.
“The final Waste Emissions Charge is the latest in a series of actions under President Biden’s methane strategy to improve efficiency in the oil and gas sector, support American jobs, protect clean air, and reinforce U.S. leadership on the global stage,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement.
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Maggie Coulter, a lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity, also praised the rule, saying that “while we expect the next administration to recklessly greenlight fossil fuel extraction, it’s heartening to see this effort to make polluters pay for their leakage of the super climate pollutant methane.”
