The Intercept
By Alleen Brown
February 15 201
IN DONALD TRUMP’S first week as president, text
describing two rules regulating the oil and gas industry was removed from an
Interior Department website. The rules, limiting hydraulic fracturing and
natural gas flaring on public lands, are both in the crosshairs of the Trump
administration.
The changes were noted by the Environmental Data and
Governance Initiative, or EDGI, which has been monitoring changes to federal
websites since Trump’s inauguration.
On January 21, the Bureau of Land Management page,
which describes various regulations for how the oil and gas industry should
operate on federal land, still included a section on the Methane and Waste
Prevention rule. The regulation was part of the Obama administration’s effort
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change. By January
28, the section was gone.
The rule, which is widely opposed by the oil and gas
industry, limits fossil fuel companies’ ability to vent and flare gas on public
land, which releases methane, a greenhouse gas around 84 times more potent than
carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. It was one of the first Obama-era
regulations to be targeted by a Republican-controlled Congress empowered by
Trump. On February 3, at least five days after the site had been updated, the
House of Representatives voted to repeal the methane rule using the
Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress 60 days to eliminate federal
regulations legislators don’t like. The bill awaits a Senate vote….
To access the complete news,
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario