EPA to issue methane rule this year

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to issue a rule regulating methane emissions later this year, administrator Andrew Wheeler said today.

The administration planned a rule that better recognizes methane as a product as well as a pollutant.

"What we are trying to do is work cooperatively with the industry to help them capture their product more and to have fewer releases," Wheeler said on the sidelines of the IHS-CERAWeek conference in Houston.

President Donald Trump's administration has planned a two-step approach to rolling back methane emission restrictions that apply to new oil and gas facilities. The EPA already proposed but has not yet finalized a plan to cut in half the frequency of leak detection tests at most new facilities. EPA has also indicated it is planning a separate proposal to revise the way it regulates methane.

Oil and gas groups have pushed EPA to stop directly regulating methane as a greenhouse gas and instead reduce it through other rules because of concerns it will lead to costly new requirements at hundreds of thousands of existing facilities.