METHANE EMISSIONS REDUCTION PLAN
In a journey to establish “How Things Work” in government policy making; let’s start with Biden’s 2021 US Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan. [You can download this PDF from a number of online sources.]
The Executive Summary states that this plan “uses all available tools” and “focuses on cutting pollution here at home from the largest sources of methane emissions in the United States.”
The next section, Why Methane, explains that “methane is a ‘short lived climate forcer’ (SLCF), which makes it a particularly destructive greenhouse gas” and that “methane is a super-pollutant that disproportionately impacts climate change in the near term.”
In Section III, [Getting the Job Done: U.S. Actions to Reduce Methane Emissions], the Methane Emissions, by Source pie chart [bellow] displays anomalies that contradict the claims of the plan’s policy makers.
While some of the pie slices represent sources by sectors, others are merely labeled by the processes that produce the methane – and the largest slice of the pie is created by combining two different slices: Natural Gas and Petroleum. Everything adds up to 100%, but there’s someone missing: Agriculture. Why?
The revised pie chart below displays how the polluters should actually be displayed.
The following section, “Getting the Job Done,” is arranged to further distance the protection that is given ubber powerful Agribusiness lobby from any meaningful restrictions:
A. “The oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the United States, responsible for approximately 30% of total methane emissions.” [Note the use of the qualifier: “industrial”]
B. “The EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce methane emissions from landfills—a major source of methane emissions that is responsible for 17% of overall U.S. methane emissions.”
C. “Abandoned coal mines are a significant source of methane emissions that are estimated to be producing 237,000 metric tons of methane (5.9 MMT CO2e) on an annual basis.”
D. “Agriculture is a major source of methane emissions in the United States.”
After this brief, unavoidable disclosure; the only plans they propose are voluntary, voluntary, and money — with a generous sugar-coating of more money.
In 2022 [3 years after the reduction plan’s data] the EPA estimated a 7.68% increase in Agricultural Methane Emissions.
I guess we need to come up with more sugar.
In the expanding Climate Change crisis; every significant source of greenhouse gas emissions should be placed on the regulatory table. While the totals of Climate Change death and destruction are steadily increasing; our government is shuffling the largest source of this “particularly destructive greenhouse gas” to the bottom of the deck, and then applying the same sweetheart, voluntary and incentive based policies that have proven worthless for decades. This is the way our government works. They’re not throwing money at the problem — they’re throwing money into the open palms of the Agribusinesses that keep them in office.
Note: When an analysis was performed on the Methane Emissions, by Source pie chart; it revealed that the difference of brightness between the “Natural Gas and Petroleum Systems” and the next largest source was more than twice that of any other in the chart.
The White House wanted to be sure that they kept our attention focused where they wanted it.
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