Methane, a byproduct of oil production and the primary product of natural gas production, has a key role in determining whether the world will be able to slow dangerous atmospheric warming.

The gas does not last nearly as long as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it is far more efficient at trapping atmospheric heat. So sharply reducing methane leaks is a way to quickly reduce global warming in the short term.

Friday, during the global climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a new rule that will sharply reduce methane emissions. In the process, it will preclude Pennsylvania legislators from pandering to the natural gas industry.

The rule eliminates a distinction between new wells, typically deep, fracked wells characteristic of the Marcellus Shale field, and older, shallow, vertical wells characteristic of the industry’s earlier eras.

Technologies exist to detect and eliminate methane leaks from wells, pipelines and processing stations. But the industry has argued that it is too expensive to apply that technology to older, low-producing wells.

The EPA has determined that wells like those, which produce the equivalent of fewer than 15 barrels of oil a day, produce more than half of the methane that enters the atmosphere from well sites.

Pennsylvania lawmakers had excluded older wells from methane regulations. Now, all drillers will have to account for methane from all wells.

The rule, requiring producers to be accountable for their pollution, is neither excessive nor extraordinary. It will go a long way toward the United States meeting its goal to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS