IPAA and Joint Trades Write Letter Urging Senate Leadership to Oppose Methane Fee

Dear Senators,

As the backbone of the American oil and natural gas industry, our respective organizations express our firm opposition to a methane emissions tax currently being considered in Congress as part of a potential budget reconciliation package.

Since 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has regulated methane emissions via the Clean Air Act (CAA) New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) OOOO and OOOOa, primarily through storage tank vapor capture, pneumatic controllers, and leak detection and repair. The focus is to prevent emissions from new facilities, identify leaks as early as possible, quickly fix them, and remove the emissions from the atmosphere.

Last year, EPA released proposed revisions to its NSPS rules that would further tighten emission standards for all new sources and update guidelines for existing sources. These revisions are likely to be finalized within the next year. Because EPA tightly regulates methane, any new fee is unlikely to have a large-scale impact on overall emission levels and would merely be punitive in nature. Furthermore, the extreme impracticability of a proposed tax leads us to believe that the true intent, combined with other proposals from Congress and the Administration, is not to protect the environment but to regulate American oil and natural gas production out of existence. …