The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced that applications are open for $850 million in federal funding for projects that will help monitor, measure, quantify, and reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sectors. The 21 June announcement builds on recent actions across the US government that aim to cut methane pollution, with agencies taking nearly 100 actions in 2023 alone, including the finalization of an EPA rule that aims to reduce methane emissions from covered oil and gas facilities by 80%.
This funding from the Inflation Reduction Act aims to mitigate legacy air pollution, create jobs in the energy sector and disadvantaged communities, reduce waste and inefficiencies in US oil and gas operations, and realize near-term emissions reductions.
“Today, we’re building on strong standards and historic progress to cut methane pollution and protect communities across the country,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “These investments from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will drive the deployment of available and advanced technologies to better understand where methane emissions are coming from. That will help us more effectively reduce harmful pollution, tackle the climate crisis, and create good-paying jobs.”
The funding is expected to help small oil and natural gas operators specifically reduce methane emissions and transition to available and innovative methane emissions reduction technologies, while supporting partnerships that improve emissions measurement and provide accurate, transparent data to affected communities. The announcement is a key part of broader technical and financial assistance that is expected to be provided by the Methane Emissions Reduction Program.
“As we continue to accelerate the nation’s clean energy transition, we are taking steps now to drastically reduce harmful emissions from America’s largest source of industrial methane—the oil and gas sector,” said US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “I am proud to partner with EPA to help revitalize energy communities and deliver long-lasting health and environmental benefits across the country.”
The primary objectives of the funding announcement are to
- Help small operators significantly reduce methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations, using commercially available technology solutions for methane emissions monitoring, measurement, quantification, and mitigation
- Accelerate the repair of methane leaks from low-producing wells and the deployment of early-commercial technology solutions to reduce methane emissions from new and existing equipment such as natural gas compressors, gas-fueled engines, associated gas flares, liquids unloading operations, handling of produced water, and other equipment leakage
- Improve communities’ access to empirical data and participation in monitoring through multiple installations of monitoring and measurement technologies while establishing collaborative relationships between equipment providers and communities
- Enhance the detection and measurement of methane emissions from oil and gas operations at regional scale, while ensuring nationwide data consistency through the creation of collaborative partnerships
Methane Emissions Reduction Program
The Inflation Reduction Act, through the Methane Emissions Reduction Program, directed the EPA to take action to tackle wasteful methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. Using resources provided by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act, the EPA is partnering with the DOE to provide $1.36 billion in financial and technical assistance to improve methane monitoring and reduce methane and other greenhouse-gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. These investments are also expected to result in the added benefits of reducing nongreenhouse-gas emissions such as volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants.
The recent announcement builds on the $350 million in formula grant funding the EPA and DOE announced in December 2023 to states to support industry efforts to voluntarily reduce emissions at low-producing wells, monitor emissions, and conduct environmental restoration at well pads.
Methane Action Plan
In December, the EPA announced final standards that aim to reduce methane and other harmful air pollutants from the oil and natural gas industry, including from hundreds of thousands of existing sources nationwide, promote the use of cutting-edge methane detection technologies, and deliver significant economic and public health benefits.
In May, the EPA issued a final rule to strengthen, expand, and update methane emissions reporting requirements for petroleum and natural gas systems under EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.
The EPA is working to finalize a Waste Emissions Charge rule, which will provide an incentive for companies to adopt best practices to reduce wasteful emissions and help capture near-term opportunities for methane reductions while the EPA and states work toward full implementation of the final oil and gas rule.
The Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed a new rule to significantly improve the detection and repair of leaks from more than 2.7 million miles of natural gas pipelines. The proposed rule would deploy pipeline workers across the country to keep more product in the pipe and prevent dangerous accidents, creating up to $2.3 billion annually in estimated benefits.
The Department of the Interior is making available nearly $5 billion funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for workers to plug tens of thousands of orphaned oil and gas wells throughout the United States, including $64 million in 2023 for hundreds of improperly abandoned wells on federal lands, up to $660 million for states to plug thousands of high-priority orphaned wells on state and private lands, and an initial investment of nearly $40 million for Tribal Nations to address orphaned wells on their lands.
The Biden administration recently released the first ever National Strategy to Advance an Integrated US Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring, and Information System to enhance coordination and integration of greenhouse gas—including methane—measurement, monitoring, and information efforts. Such efforts include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s collection of high-resolution methane leak data via the EMIT Mission on the International Space Station, aircraft flights coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute for Standards and Technology to connect satellite data to specific emissions sources on the ground, and the work of the DOE and the State Department to coordinate international methane data collection and measurement efforts via a new Measurement, Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification Working Group and the UN Methane Alert and Response System.