WASHINGTON, D.C.— U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) spoke on the Senate Floor Wednesday regarding the Obama administration’s recent announcement of a deal with Canada to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production facilities.
On Feb. 9, 2015, Senator Barrasso and Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) introduced S. 411, the Natural Gas Gathering Enhancement Act. This bipartisan bill would expedite the permitting process for natural gas-gathering lines on federal lands and Indian lands.
Transcript of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“Last week the Prime Minister of Canada came to Washington for a visit.
“President Obama used that opportunity to take yet another cheap shot at American energy producers.
“The administration made a deal with Canada to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production facilities.
“Now, they want tough new restrictions to cut emissions almost in half over the next decade.
“The very same day, the Environmental Protection Agency said that it plans to come up with more regulations for methane.
“Well the Obama administration is already trying to limit methane that gets released from new oil and gas wells as they get put into production.
“But now the administration wants to go back and impose those limits on existing wells – ones that were built to actually comply with the current rules on the books.
“So here’s what I find so interesting about this.
“This was an official state visit by a foreign leader to the United States.
“It was the first trip for the new prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
“So President Obama decided that the most important thing our two countries could talk about was methane.
“Not Syria, not trying to stop radical Islamic terrorists, not dealing with ISIS?
“Not the hostile regimes like North Korea, of Iran, or Russia, no.
“Not what we can do to actually help our economies grow.
“Instead, President Obama chose to focus on methane.
“Why is President Obama so fixated on this? Well let me tell you.
“The president is bitter—bitter that the Supreme Court is blocking his Clean Power Plan – and he’s pouting, and he’s pandering.
“He’s gone after coal, he’s gone after oil, and now he’s going after natural gas.
“It is a vendetta against American energy producers.
“The president and other Democrats are pandering to radical environmental extremists and to their billionaire donors.
“We all want to make sure that we have a clean environment.
“My goal is to make American energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, and do it in ways that don’t raise costs for American families.
“That’s why the people that I talk with back home in Wyoming believe that this new regulation is the wrong approach.
“My local newspaper – the Casper Star Tribune – had a front-page article about it on Friday. The headline was: ‘Cuts to methane emissions proposed.’
“The article quotes John Robataille, now he’s from the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.
“He says that the Environmental Protection Agency ‘has failed to recognize the economic burden placed on replacing equipment on existing wells as opposed to new wells.’ Ones that are still to be built.
“Now, John Robataille may say ‘failed to recognize,’ I say the administration deliberately refuses to recognize, refuses.
“For Washington to come in and demand expensive new equipment for all of these oil and gas wells would be a huge cost.
“It would drive up prices for consumers – and it would mean that some of these wells just wouldn’t be economically worthwhile anymore.
“The oil and gas would just stay in the ground, where it does nothing to help power our economy or power our country.
“States are already doing their part. States are trying to limit methane leaks where they find a problem.
“Colorado has leak detection and repair program that will help keep ozone and methane from escaping.
“Wyoming, my home state, is looking for ways to get more up-to-date equipment on new wells as they get going.
“So the states are already taking the lead – and they’re already coming up with solutions where they are needed.
“Now this is not a one-size-fits-all regulation coming out from unelected, unaccountable Washington bureaucrats. But that’s what we’re having to deal with now in this administration.
“What we prefer are state solutions, and what I just described are state solutions that strike a common-sense balance between a strong economy and a very healthy environment.
“And it’s not just states that are taking action.
“Oil and gas producers also want to reduce how much methane escapes from these wells.
“Producers would prefer to capture that gas – and then to sell it so it can be used.
“That’s why the industry reduced methane emissions by 13 percent between 2008 and 2013.
“Over the same years, U.S. shale gas production grew by 400 percent.
“So the industry actually cut emissions even while the gas production went way up.
“This happened because of the action that the producers and the states have already been taking – not because of more regulations coming out of Washington, D.C.
“Energy producers need the flexibility to tackle these emissions when and how it makes sense.
“There are already too many rules on the books.
“The Bureau of Land Management has another methane rule in the works.
“More, duplicative regulations will just raise costs for Americans – at a time when our economy is weak and emissions are already dropping.
“This new red-tape could add hundreds of millions of dollars every year onto the cost of producing American red, white and blue energy.
“If the Obama administration really wants to reduce emissions from oil and gas wells, it should help the industry to capture this gas and to use it.
“Now this was the subject of a bipartisan solution that Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and I offered last month. It was as an amendment to the energy bill legislation.
“Our amendment, bipartisan, would have expedited the permit process for natural gas gathering lines, the lines that gather this gas on the federal land, and on Indian land then help take it to market.
“Gas gathering lines are essentially pipelines that collect unprocessed gas from oil and gas wells, and then ship it to a processing plant.
“At the plant, different kinds of gases – methane and propane – they are separated from one another.
“They’re then shipped out again to locations where they can be sold, and used by people. That’s what the producers want to do.
“The problem is, we don’t have enough of these pipelines now to gather up the gas, and to send it to the processing plants.
“Lots of times, there’s only one option, and if you don’t have the gathering lines, it’s to flare or vent the excess natural gas at the well.
“No, if there were more gathering lines, there would be a lot less waste of energy.
“We’d have a lot less of these methane emissions that President Obama claims to be so worried about.
“So Senator Heitkamp and I offered a better way to deal with the problem – and 43 Democrats here in the Senate blocked our amendment.
“At a hearing of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month, I actually asked Interior Secretary Jewell about the idea.
“Even she had to concede that speeding up the permits was something that they should be looking into.
“This doesn’t have to be a fight.
“We all agree that there is too much of this gas that has been vented or burned off at the oil and gas wells.
“Republicans know it, Democrats know it, energy producers know it.
“So why can’t we agree to let the industry build the gathering lines to help them capture the gas where it makes sense and how it makes sense?
“Why do we need more Washington regulations that impose higher costs?
“America’s energy producers have increased production while reducing emissions.
“They’ve provided what may be the only bright spot in our economy over the past seven years.
We should be doing all that we can to help them, to encourage them.
“We should be looking for voluntary, cost-effective ways to help make sure that we can make American energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, without raising costs on American families.”
“The Obama administration is going in the wrong direction.”