Even oil companies say they don’t want to pollute as much as Trump wants them to

When the Trump administration announced its plans to roll back regulations that cut methane pollution—a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2—from oil and gas companies, even some oil and gas companies said that they didn’t want that to happen.

Exxon asked the EPA to maintain parts of the Obama-era policy. The president of BP America argued that “regulating methane is the right thing to do for the planet.” Shell told the administration it wanted methane emissions to be regulated. But on Thursday, the EPA went ahead with its plan anyway.

In part, oil and gas companies want regulations because natural gas, often touted as a “bridge” fuel that is cleaner than other fossil fuels, is in danger of fully losing whatever amount of green cred it had. When it’s burned, natural gas is far cleaner than coal. But when it’s produced, methane leaks are a major source of pollution. When methane gets into the atmosphere, it traps more heat than carbon dioxide—as much as 80 times more over the first couple of decades that it’s in the air. The technology exists to avoid most of those emissions. Read Full Article - Fast Company, August 20, 2019