The Patriot Post® · EPA Targets Oil and Gas Industry With Methane Regs

Doesn’t the Environmental Protection Agency have better things to do like, oh, cleaning up a Colorado river? The EPA has taken aim at the scourge of methane gas emitted during oil and gas drilling, proposing a rule that would require the oil and gas industry to reduce methane gas emissions by 40-45% of 2012 levels by 2025. It’s a stunning example of government incompetence, as the rule disregards human motivation and the EPA’s own data on the subject of methane emissions. First, methane is natural gas. Natural gas is energy. For an energy company, energy is money. As Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw notes, “Any methane that escapes the well is literally money floating away into the air. … Believe me, if the drilling companies can get the methane emission levels down to zero … they’re going to do it and it won’t be to make the EPA happy.” Furthermore, the EPA admits that the oil and gas industry has been the driving force in reducing the nation’s methane production. The biggest human-caused culprit driving the rise of methane to the heavens is enteric fermentation — a.k.a. cow farts. (Not to worry: environmentalists have a plan for that too.) But the EPA goes after the energy industry because it fits its propaganda regarding man-made global warming.