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Obama Planning New Rules For Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Emissions
mdsolar sends this quote from the NY Times:
In President Obama's latest move using executive authority to tackle climate change, administration officials will announce plans this week to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry's emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, according to a person familiar with Mr. Obama's plans. The administration's goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025 from the levels recorded in 2012.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan. The White House declined to comment on the effort. Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan. The White House declined to comment on the effort. Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.
Obama has always been trying to reduce domestic oil production.
Methane doesn't last long in the atmosphere. It degrades relatively rapidly. But we need to shut down the EPA and it's burdensome regulations. It's destroying the business climate in our country.
I agree that anything Obama is for, I'm against. I don't plan it that way but it's always true, to the point that now I don't even need to think about it. It just always works out that way. The guy is destroying our country and creating a permanent, government-dependent underclass. It makes me want to scream.
9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution is a bloody lot of greenhouse gas! Does the adding of the word "just" make it any less?
How much does this plan help to reduce a extrapolated increase in the temperature of the planet vs how much will it cost the economy? I think we all know this plan by President Obama will not affect the climate but it will hurt Americans.
I'm pretty sure you'd really not like living in the fetid cesspool your environment would become if you killed off the EPA.
Oh, but, of course .. you're going to make the idiotic claim that if people want a clean environment 'that market' will find a solution.
The only solutions the market finds is maximizing profits, killing off the EPA just removes one more constraint to allow corporations to be even bigger assholes.
Tell you want, let the Republicans all live down stream of plants which have no EPA controls. I dare you. Go ahead, drink that water and tell us it's safe. Expose your children to it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because brilliant geniuses like yourself remember how awesome it was back before things like the EPA and the Clean Air and Water acts?
Junior, some of us were alive in the 1960's and 1970's. We remember how well the "invisible hand" of the market didn't do shit to stop rampant pollution. We remember not being able to swim or fish in the rivers, lakes and bays we can now swim and fish in comfortably.
Go swim in some toxic sewage this weekend. Then get used to that feeling if the EPA is defunded.
The problem with the EPA is like other Gov agencies. For example, the IRS is a needed function, but is it efficient and looking for the best interests of the citizens? Hardly. The EPA is needed, but its growing into a giant lumbering obstacle to many economic and personal ventures.
We all agree that the obvious things are obvious. No one should be allowed to dump toxic waste in a creek. The non-obvious things are where things start to suck. For example a home owner find some outrageous amount for building an unauthorized pond, or restricting development due to a variety of field mouse.
No the market wont find a solution, because the market is designed to find the best price/competition point. There is no real incentive to protect the economy, other than maybe bad press. This is a valid function of government, but like everything else, is prone to abuse.
The US system is horribly designed so incentive wise you actually have it backwards.
The public can't really tell who's fault is what when both sides point fingers, nor can they readily distinguish between the President and his party in congress. So they hold him accountable for everything that happens in government and every election is basically a referendum on whether the country is doing well.
So when the congress is controlled by another party it's actually in that congress's best interest to misgovern. Because the worse things get the more dissatisfied voters get, and more dissatisfied the voters the more they'll punish the President by voting the opposing party into congress.
There's a reason the Daily Show and Colbert Report could be so good by simply showing clips of politicians talking for large portions of the show. For a country of your size and wealth the quality of your governance is shockingly bad.
I stole this Sig
So people who always agree with the Anointed One are thoughtful, but people who always disagree with Him are thoughtless. Got it. Your use of logic and reason are truly inspirational. Carry on, AC.
In fairness that's a strawman. The AC never claimed that people who always agree with "the Anointed One" are thoughtful. He merely claimed that a specific person who, by their own admission, is against anything Obama is for without even needing to think about it is thoughtless. And IMHO that's kind of hard to argue with.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
...what AC sibling said, and summarized for visibility: Federal gasoline taxes are a fixed amount per gallon, not a percentage of retail. Gas can be $0.50/gallon or $50.00/gallon, and the feds will take in the same amount based on actual consumption.
Higher gasoline taxes are however beneficial to the Oil Shale industry, which OPEC is currently trying to damage by creating the current glut.
I think it will however backfire on them as Russia is experiencing collateral damage from this, as is Venezuela, Canada, and other economies which rely on oil exports for a significant percentage of their wealth.
I don't see too much of an impact here in the US (outside of Texas and North Dakota), and what damage does occur may be offset by lower prices overall brought by the cheaper fuel/transportation costs.
I also doubt that Obama is specifically doing this to lash out at the oil industry, so much as doing it to satisfy his particular ideological and supporters' demands/desires as regards fossil fuels.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The profits are gathered or lost by a lot of folks:
* The largest consumers of petroleum such as airlines and other transportation companies stand to make or lose millions of dollars by a penny's change in prices.
* Oil companies obviously see a huge chunk of this, natch.
* Commodity traders
Not seeing too many of them (outside of Warren Buffett and his trains) who are friends of the president and would stand to benefit or lose anything significant from this. Then again, there is the Keystone XL pipeline... a crippled oil shale industry won't ship as much oil, which means that Mr. Buffett would have a stronger argument to continue shipping that oil on his rail lines.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Methane doesn't last long in the atmosphere
that '25 times as powerful as CO2' statistic is its equivalent over a 100-year period. even though methane may not last long before being oxidized into CO2, during that period it has a much greater forcing.
trust me here, methane aint nothin to fuck with. tightening up leaks is inarguably a good thing.
OH BS;
If the warmistas at realclimate say it ain't the methane, it ain't the methane! Everybody is just freaking becuase there has been no statisically significant lower troposheric warming for over 18 years and OCO is showing that the significant sources of Atmospheric CO2 isn't the evil(tm) westerners but the Chinese, the rain forrests and geological sources.
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