Methane Rule Relief Act of 2019

Madam Speaker, in 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the New Source Performance Standards for the oil and natural gas industry to further regulate methane emissions. Thankfully, the EPA is revisiting this regulation in an effort to provide flexibility and relief moving forward.

For many small oil and gas producers, these requirements contained in the original regulation are simply unworkable and overly burdensome.

For example, the regulation would even apply to wells that produce less than 15 barrels of oil and less than 90,000 cubic feet of natural gas per day. Because these wells produce at low volumes, the profit margin remains tight for the operators.

However, under the original rule, these low-volume producers would be subject to expensive upgrades, additional reporting requirements and administrative costs in order to comply with the regulation.

Madam Speaker, today I introduced H.R. 1391, the Methane Relief Act of 2019, which would exempt these low-volume wells from the rule's requirements. Doing so will allow for commonsense regulatory relief and certainty for these smaller operators which account for an important part of our domestic energy industry.