https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/climate/methane-biden-oil-gas-fee.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NE0.3whK.eVkA24fRnxBQ
A plan to impose a fee of $900 to $1,500 on every excess ton of methane emissions would be the first federal price on greenhouse gas pollution.
Call me cynical, but it says "the fines could total millions of dollars for the companies" and oil companies are expected to self-report on how much excessive methane they produce.
Not sure if it made it into the final version, but the draft version of the regulations let 3rd parties report emissions. And there are instruments in orbit which can spot methane now, in addition to people who show up with IR cameras and spot them from the ground.
Good. Oil companies don't listen to much except for when their money is on the line.
Sure, for some companies it may just be a "fee to keep doing what we're doing", there's a lot more we can do and we direly need to reduce our dependence on oil & gas across the board, but this is a start.
The fines will be so small the oil companies will consider it a good deal to pay it and keep polluting.
I mean it is pretty shitty that they're just venting something that could be used, let alone the fact that methane is an immediate greenhouse gas.
Many people believe that methane leaks are badly undercounted, and that a proper accounting would show that these methane leaks make so-called "natural gas" as damaging as coal, on the basis on grams of CO2 per kWh of electricity generated. (Coal is obscenely dirty which introduces other problems, but that's an issue deserving of its own conversation.) So this is an important first step.