Natural Gas

Environmental groups are ramping up warnings of the climate and health damages from oil and gas industry methane emissions, just as the Trump EPA draws closer to issuing a proposal that is expected to seek to rescind an Obama-era policy directly regulating methane emissions from new and modified sources.

Two major public health groups have wasted little time suing over EPA’s final Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, the Trump administration’s limited approach to controlling power plant greenhouse gas emissions, the same day the rule was formally promulgated and the first day of a 60-day period petitioners have to sue.

EPA is projecting only “small” cuts in greenhouse gases from its final Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule governing existing power plants, with the regulation potentially shaving just a fraction of 1 percent of the emissions from the country’s second-largest source of GHGs.

Over industry objections, EPA is dropping biomass co-firing as a compliance option in its final Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule that seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, saying the decision is required under its interpretation of the Clean Air Act despite the agency’s policy of promoting biomass as carbon neutral.