Obama Administration announces plans to rein in methane pollution across multiple agencies

WASHINGTON, D.C. March 28, 2014  -- The Obama Administration announced a plan to develop a strategy for controlling methane emissions from the oil and gas sector across multiple agencies. The President’s climate action plan, announced last June, called for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Interior, Labor, and Transportation to develop a comprehensive methane strategy focusing on assessing current emissions data, addressing data gaps, identifying technologies and best practices for reducing emissions, and identifying existing authorities and incentive-based opportunities to reduce methane emissions.

In response, Sierra Club’s Deborah Nardone, Campaign Director of Keeping Dirty Fuels in the Ground issued the following statement:

“President Obama’s plan to reduce climate-disrupting methane pollution is an important step in reining in an out of control industry exempt from too many public health protections.  Required methane controls for the oil and gas sector are essential. However, even with the most rigorous methane controls and monitoring in place, we will still fall short of what is needed to fight climate disruption if we do not reduce our reliance on these dirty fossil fuels. 

”Fracking threatens to transform our most beautiful wild places, our communities, and our backyards into dirty fuel industrial sites. The Obama Administration must work quickly to control methane from new and existing oil and gas fracking operations, close the exemptions that allow the oil and gas industry to benefit at the cost of our health, prevent future leasing of our public lands, and invest in truly clean energy like wind and solar, and commonsense solutions like energy efficiency"