Credit: Angus Mordant/Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected in the coming days to lift Obama-era controls on the release of methane, a powerful climate-warming gas that is emitted from leaks and flares in oil and gas wells.
The new rule on methane pollution, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, has been expected for months, and will be made public before Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously to avoid publicly pre-empting the official announcement.
The rollback of the methane rule is the latest move in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to weaken environmental standards, which has continued unabated during the coronavirus pandemic.
In April, the E.P.A. weakened rules on the release of toxic chemicals from coal-fired power plants, loosened curbs on climate-warming tailpipe pollution and opted not to strengthen a regulation on industrial soot emissions that have been linked to respiratory diseases, including Covid-19.
In July, President Trump unilaterally weakened one of the nation’s bedrock
I still remember when we had President Carter who put up solar panels on the White House, setting a good example for future Presidents until they became corrupt.
I was around during the Carter Administration and felt he was a good president beset by difficult challenges not of his making. Of course the Iran hostage crisis finished him off. There again not his fault when the rescue mission crashed and burned yet even though the military failed their mission he took responsibility. The intervening years have shown Jimmy Carter to be a virtuous man who might have saved us from the ravages of Reaganism. Oh the solar panels you refer to were, I believe, for hot water.
Here in Australia I am trying to convince a science-based political party to sue the US administration for the increases in CO2 emissions under the Trump admin. The atmosphere the US is polluting is my atmosphere too.