WASHINGTON — The Obama administration laid out a blueprint Wednesday for the first regulations to cut down on methane emissions from new natural gas wells, aiming to curb the discharge of a potent greenhouse gas by roughly half.
Relying once again on the Clean Air Act, the rules join a host of others that President Barack Obama has ordered to slow global warming despite opposition to new laws in Congress that has only hardened since the midterm elections. Although just a sliver of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, methane is far more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. The White House set a new target for the U.S. to cut methane emissions by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2025, compared with 2012 levels. The Associated Press
