The Trump admin is poised to gut regulations on methane, a potent greenhouse gas. This is exactly what the oil & gas industry has been asking for. @dylanbaddour.bsky.social reports for @insideclimatenews.org:

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Methane gas billows from oil wells, blasts out of pressure valves on pipelines, wafts from sprawling gas processing plants and rises up in clouds when companies air out systems during routine maintenance in the oilfields.

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Something I've come to appreciate over time: Wrist-slap regulation, captured regulation, is much better for harmful industries than no regulation. It lets them claim they're accountable to the people (via government regulators), gaining social license, while in practice doing whatever they want.

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To Wilson, the activist who documents emissions, all the talk about rulemaking has little effect on the ground... “Even if we had the best rules you could think of, we don’t have enough people to enforce those,” she said. “It would take an army.”

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“There were methane plumes at all times of day from all directions,” he said. “The density of wells is so high in that area, you will probably not be able to assign that to any particular location.”

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