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This reads like an onion article. How did they not have to detect and fix their self-inflicted methane leaks so far?
[…]for the first time, require oil and gas producers to detect and fix leaks of methane.
It was the most ambitious move to reduce fossil fuel emissions that President Biden’s administration was expected to unveil at the summit,[…]
This is the most ambitious move? While extracting natural gas, they create methane leaks. So far they were ignored? And now someone had the ambitious idea to no longer ignore them? How is this reality and not satire?
They simply didn’t care. There’s a whole genre of people using thermal imaging cameras to see vast quantities of methane being released by oil wells and other fossil fuel infrastructure from things like unlit flares.
The Inflation Reduction Act imposed a tax on methane emissions by the oil and gas industry at high-emissions locations, so now suddenly people are interested in both collecting the tax and in preventing the emissions to avoid the tax.
Trump slashed environmental protection laws during his administration and pretty much castrated the EPA. Things were getting better before that thanks to a lot of things enacted under Obama. See this list on what he removed, particularly the demand for oil and gas companies to report methane emissions, but also a ton of other emissions and pollutant laws.
Just one more reason he can’t be allowed back into office…
