The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), by way of its Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), recently announced a proposed new rule that would dramatically improve the detection and remediation of methane and other leaks from pipelines.
The goal of this rule is to dramatically lower emissions of methane, the most climate destructive greenhouse gas, as well as other air pollutants than threaten public safety, from several million miles of pipelines throughout the country.
We will not meet our climate targets while undetected pipeline leaks, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates are the source of 1/3 of the U.S. fossil fuel industry’s methane releases, poison our atmosphere. This rule can finally help address one of the largest sources of methane emissions by simply deploying technology that already exists, requiring operators to conduct more frequent leak surveys, repair leaks identified on their systems more quickly, and to expand the amount of gathering lines that must be surveyed.
Finalizing the strongest possible controls over methane pollution is critical to protecting our front line communities, as well as our essential water resources from the impacts of climate change.
The pipeline rule-making that PHMSA has proposed, which will require pipeline operators to use existing advanced leak detection technology to find and fix more methane leaks within required time frames, has the goal of reducing methane emissions by up to 55%, eliminating up to 1 million tons in one year, 2030, alone.
Now is our chance to significantly step up the federal effort to substantially cut methane emissions in the short time we have left to meet our climate targets.
