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Awarded funding for methane reduction is likely secure going into the Trump presidency

A natural gas rig in the middle of a field
BLM Wyoming
/
Flickr Creative Commons

When talking about climate change, carbon dioxide often takes center stage. But methane is actually a bigger problem. A project in southwest Wyoming intends to address it with the help of new federal funds.

In the last few years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) zeroed in on reducing methane emissions with federal funds, since it’s “one of the fastest ways to slow the rate of warming,” said John Rutecki, manager of regulatory and legislative affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Rutecki is excited about a new round of grants that’ll cut emissions at lower-producing oil and gas wells across the country.

“There's a lot of them, and so they have a lot of cumulative methane emissions, so that's significant,” he said.

About $4 million is going toward a project in southwest Wyoming, which will replace pneumatic devices in remote mountainous oil and gas wells.

“They're [pneumatic devices] really just a piece of equipment that helps move gas through the equipment and controls pressure levels,” Rutecki said.

If pressure levels are too high, the pneumatic device typically releases natural gas, which includes methane.

“A valuable product, obviously, or a pollutant, depending on how you want to look at it,” he said.

Pneumatics are considered one of the largest emitters of methane in the natural gas industry, according to the EPA. The EPA is requiring states to make a plan for regulating methane at oil and gas wells installed before Dec. 22, 2002. Wyoming is in the process of doing so.

The agency also required the same for new wells and those installed after that date, and those rules were recently finalized. Replacing pneumatic devices is seen as a way to reduce methane and is a growing trend in the industry already.

A popular option is called “instrument air,” where compressed air is released instead of natural gas. But it requires reliable and sufficient access to power.

The southwest Wyoming project, spearheaded by Blue Mountain Operations, intends to replace the devices with a solar powered instrument air, as there isn’t reliable grid power in some of these oil and gas well sites.

But replacing these devices can be spendy. The recently announced EPA funds are intended to help, with about $850 million divided out amongst 43 projects.

The funds are part of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has been dubbed the “most significant piece of climate policy in history" by some. The goal is to use the funds to slow the effects of climate change.

Incoming Pres. Donald Trump has talked about clawing back IRA funds, but likely not this specific funding.

“I mean, the money has been awarded, so we assume that it is okay,” said Rutecki.

But even without national regulation, Rutecki thinks oil and gas companies may continue down the climate-friendly path.

“All these operators will want to maintain access to global markets,” he said. “The EU has a methane intensity standard that operators would need to meet in order to be able to sell their product overseas.”

Unspent money from the climate legislation could be at risk when Trump takes office.

Caitlin Tan is the Energy and Natural Resources reporter based in Sublette County, Wyoming. Since graduating from the University of Wyoming in 2017, she’s reported on salmon in Alaska, folkways in Appalachia and helped produce 'All Things Considered' in Washington D.C. She formerly co-hosted the podcast ‘Inside Appalachia.' You can typically find her outside in the mountains with her two dogs.

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