The US Environmental Protection Agency announced in Nov 2021 plans for a new Clean Air Act rule to drive reductions in methane emissions and emissions of VOCs. EPA intends to issue the supplemental proposal in 2022, and to issue a final rule before the end of 2022.

The plan includes updated and broadened methane and VOC emission reduction requirements for new, modified, and reconstructed oil and gas sources, including from intermittent vent pneumatic controllers, associated gas, and well liquids unloading.

• Requirements that state develop plans should limit methane emissions from hundreds of thousands of existing sources nationwide, along with presumptive standards for existing     sources to assist in the planning process.  
• New and existing well sites and compressor stations will need a comprehensive emissions monitoring     program.
• Owners and operators have flexibility to use advanced technology that can find major leaks more rapidly and at lower cost than ever before;
• There will be a  “zero-emissions standard” for new and existing pneumatic controllers (with a limited alternative standard for sites in Alaska),  certain types of which account for approximately 30 percent of current     methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector
• Standards to eliminate venting  of associated gas, and require capture and sale of gas where a sales line is available, at new and existing oil wells;
• Proposed performance standards and presumptive standards for other new and existing sources, including  storage tanks, pneumatic pumps, and compressors;
• A requirement that states that meaningfully engagement is required with overburdened and under served communities, among other stakeholders, in developing state plans.

The EPA is taking comments on how to structure a community monitoring program that would empower the public to detect and report large emission events for appropriate follow-up by operators for possible further development in a supplemental proposal.

The EPA calculates that it’s proposed rule would create costs of “pennies” per barrel of oil or thousand cubic feet of gas, and it would reduce 41m tons of methane emissions over 2023 to 2035, equivalent to the CO2 emitted from all US passenger cars and commercial aircraft in one year (2019), and mean a reduction in methane emissions by 74 per cent by 2050. It also calculates the climate benefit of the rule of $4.5bn a year, based on the social costs of greenhouse gases.