The free ride for methane, a climate-warming gas 84 times stronger than carbon dioxide, is finally nearing an end in Washington.
While one atmosphere-heating pollutant after another has fallen under regulators’ sway, powerful petrochemical interests and, until recently, scientific uncertainty about the scale of the problem, have thwarted methane restrictions. That will begin to change in coming weeks when the Biden administration proposes the most aggressive federal methane mandates yet for oil and gas wells.
"Science tells us we have vanishingly little time left to slow global warming before we start passing serious climate tipping points,” said Sarah Smith, director of the Clean Air Task Force’s super pollutants program. "The fastest way to pump the brakes is to reduce methane pollution.”