The EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced approximately $850 million for 43 projects selected for negotiation that will help small oil and gas operators, tribes, and other entities across the country to reduce, monitor, measure, and quantify methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

 

“The selected projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) … represent a significant step in addressing climate change and improving air quality,” according to an Agency news release. “By mitigating legacy air pollution and supporting small oil and natural gas operators, the projects will help reduce methane emissions through available and innovative technologies. Additionally, they will create partnerships to enhance emissions measurement and provide transparent data to affected communities. One Tribal consortium, 11 universities, and 20 private companies were selected for projects across the Nation to deploy and test new and existing methane mitigation technologies:

• Three projects will help small operators across the country significantly reduce methane emissions from low-producing oil and natural gas operations, using commercially available technology solutions.
• Thirty-one projects will accelerate the deployment of early-commercial technology solutions to reduce methane emissions from new and existing equipment.
• Four projects will improve communities’ access to empirical emissions data and participation in monitoring methane emissions.
• Five projects will enhance the detection and measurement of methane emissions from oil and gas operations at a regional scale.

“In total, EPA and DOE are partnering to provide $1.36 billion in financial and technical assistance as part of the [IRA’s] Methane Emissions Reduction Program. DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, under the purview of DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, will manage the selected projects.”

The selected projects build on the $350 million in grant funding to states the EPA and DOE announced in December 2023 to support industry efforts to voluntarily reduce emissions at low-producing wells, monitor emissions, and conduct environmental restoration at well pads.

The investments in these projects represent a key step in implementing the Methane Emissions Reduction Program.

Methane Emissions Reduction Program

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) that majorly contributes to global warming.

“Over 100 years, one ton of emitted methane traps 28 times as much heat in the Earth’s atmosphere as one ton of emitted carbon dioxide,” the EPA’s release says. “The oil and natural gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S. A rapid reduction in methane emissions is one of the most important and cost-effective actions the U.S. can take in the short term to slow the rate of rapidly rising global temperatures.”

The IRA directed the EPA to take action to tackle wasteful methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The Methane Emissions Reduction Program is one of the actions resulting from this directive to the EPA.

“The financial and technical assistance, implemented through a partnership between EPA and DOE, work in concert both with the recently finalized Waste Emissions Charge and with Clean Air Act (CAA) standards issued in March 2024 to limit methane emissions from new and existing oil and gas operations,” the Agency’s release adds. “The Methane Emissions Reduction Program also advances the Biden-Harris Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which sets a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal climate, clean energy, and other investments benefit disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.”

See the DOE webpage Project Selections for FOA 3256 for more information about the 43 selected projects for this funding.