Robert Schmad
Daily Caller News Foundation
The Biden administration approved new regulations Saturday aimed at reducing methane gas emissions, but some elected officials and trade groups are concerned they disproportionately target small businesses.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will require oil producers to upgrade their equipment and to search for leaks at their existing worksites in order to curb methane emissions, which the EPA identifies as one of the primary drivers of climate change, Politico reported. Critics worry, however, that the regulations could be a boon to Big Oil as large firms can absorb the costs associated with compliance more easily than smaller producers.
“The big multinationals have the luxury of having deep pockets,” Republican North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer told Politico. He said that some smaller oil producers lack the same resources as big oil corporations and viewed the regulations as expensive and similar to already existing state-level rules.
The Western Energy Alliance, a trade association that represents the interests of independent natural gas and oil producers in the Western United States, offered similar concerns.
The group, in a press release, slammed what it called the “EPA’s deliberate efforts to close hundreds of thousands of low-producing wells, thereby threatening 10 percent of America’s oil production.”
“These wells are operated mainly by small businesses that cannot absorb the relatively huge regulatory costs of this rule and will be put out of business”
The Western Energy Alliance also argued the regulations will lead to fewer jobs in the energy sector.
While the WEA opposes the regulations on behalf of small and midsize companies, major oil companies have voluntarily pledged to reduce their methane emissions.
Oil companies owned by Saudi Arabia, as well as some domestic fossil fuel giants like ExxonMobil, signed on to initiatives at the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Saturday pledging to reduce the amount of methane emitted from their production facilities, according to The Washington Post.
Biden admin officials have defended efforts to reduce methane emissions as necessary.
“Methane is one of the greatest dangers within the context of the climate crisis that one could imagine,” U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry said on Friday, according to Politico.
“There’s no way to keep the Earth’s temperature at 1.5 degrees if we’re not focused—super focused—on methane.”
The EPA did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: Shortly after Hamas terrorists fired over 5,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and then proceeded to attack the Jewish state by land, sea and air – torturing, burning, beheading and murdering well over a thousand people, including women, children and infants, and wounding and abducting hundreds more – world reaction was, in its own way, almost equally shocking.
For after the biggest one-day mass slaughter of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, what followed was an outpouring of celebratory demonstrations, unbridled Jew-hatred, deliriously gleeful support for Hamas and bitter condemnation of the nation of Israel. Not just in the Arab-Muslim world, but throughout the Western world as well, including all across America.
Why? What is behind the explosion of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-terror sentiment in the United States, where Israel has long been one of America’s closest friends and allies? Why are hordes of young “woke” LGBT demonstrators marching in support of Hamas – when Hamas wouldn’t think twice about binding and blindfolding them and throwing them off the roof of a tall building – as they routinely do in the Muslim world?
It turns out there’s one area of agreement that is so powerful, deep-seated and all-consuming that the vast differences between the deranged left and the murderous jihadists melt away into Kumbaya harmony.
All of this and much more is completely exposed in November’s issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled ISRAEL VS. GLOBAL JIHAD: How Jew-hatred, radical Islam and Leftism are pushing us toward World War III. Beyond a deeply insightful dive into why leftists are surging toward radical Islam – which hates and dreams of raping and butchering them – this Whistleblower issue includes fantastic articles by everyone from top Israeli analyst (and former Israel Defense Forces officer) Caroline Glick to Harvest Christian Fellowship’s Pastor Greg Laurie on the current war in Israel and biblical prophecies regarding the End Times … which he says are now upon us.
WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!
SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!
