Re: Jan. 28 editorial.
Western Energy Alliance appreciates that the Denver Post editorial board is attempting to find balance on reasonable regulation of the oil and natural gas industry. However, your editorial leaves out a very important fact: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) does not have authority to regulate air quality. Congress granted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and states authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate air quality. The BLM is a federal land management agency without air quality expertise and authority, so Congress is right to stop its unlawful overreach.
The BLM rule is redundant not only with Colorado’s methane rule, but also with EPA rules finalized just last year. The EPA’s rule applies to all new wells, whether federal or non-federal, so why does the BLM need to duplicate it? The EPA has also started rule-making for all existing wells by following the process set up by Congress in the Clean Air Act. The BLM’s rule would regulate existing federal wells now, but without bothering to follow the Clean Air Act. Certainly a hatchet, not a scalpel, is called for when an agency subverts the law.
The problem with duplicative rules is they add cost without corresponding environmental benefits. The BLM estimates that 4 percent of the gas lost from federal wells is from leaks, yet 30 percent of the cost of the rule arises from leak detection provisions. That cost is way out of line with the benefits, especially when EPA and Colorado rules already address leaks. Redundant, costly regulation will further drive production off federal and Indian lands, depriving tribal members and all Americans of revenue from the energy they own.
Industry has already reduced methane emissions 21 percent since 1990 in the absence of federal regulation, even as natural gas production has skyrocketed 47 percent. EPA and state rules are driving emissions even lower. Congress should overturn the BLM’s redundant rule.
Kathleen Sgamma is president of Western Energy Alliance, a regional oil and natural gas trade association based in Denver.
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