"Supporters and opponents of the EPA’s proposed methane rules gathered in Pittsburgh Tuesday for a hearing on federal efforts to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production. Methane is up to 84 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. The oil and gas industry is the country’s largest single source of methane emissions. In September, the EPA proposed the first federal rules to keep methane from oil and gas out of the atmosphere. The proposed rules are part of a plan that would reduce the industry’s pollution by up to 45 percent. The rule would require increased leak detection and repair of new well pads, pipelines, and gas processing stations, said David Cozzie, group leader of the EPA’s Fuels and Incineration Group, which helped craft the regulations.
The rules would also require operators of compressor stations to use ‘low-bleed’ control systems that release fewer emissions, and require plant operators to replace equipment more often, in order to prevent methane from escaping through leaky seals. The EPA focused on well pads and compressor stations, Cozzie said, because they are constructed with equipment that allows methane to escape into the atmosphere. Studies have found that “super-emitters”–a relatively small number of leak sources–may produce the majority of methane pollution from the oil and gas industry. “There’s been lots of literature out there about these super-emitters, which are sites that have large emissions and they tend to be associated with well sites and compressor stations,” Cozzie said."
https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2015/09/29/epa-hears-comments-on-proposed-methane-rule-for-oil-and-gas/#more-36366
