By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a final rule targeting a kind of harmful air pollution that has been disproportionately pervasive in West Virginia.
The EPA’s final rule released Saturday for gas and oil operations is designed to significantly lower methane emissions — which accelerate climate change — and other air pollutants that drive cancer risk from oil and gas facilities.
The new rule contains the first ever emissions guidelines under the Clean Air Act for states to follow in developing and implementing plans to establish standards to limit methane emissions from existing sources in the oil and gas sector.
The finalized standards build on methane rulemaking the EPA proposed in 2021 and 2022 that drew submissions of nearly 1 million formal comments — including criticism from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP is expected to play a critical role in carrying out the rule since it requires states to develop and submit a plan for reducing methane from existing sources.
The EPA says the rule will avoid an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions from 2024 to 2038, nearly 80% less than projected methane emissions without the rule. The agency projects the rule will avoid 16 million tons of smog-forming volatile organic compound emissions and 590,000 tons of air toxics.