The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy are making $850 million available to projects that will help monitor, measure, quantify and reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sectors.
The funds come from the Methane Emissions Reduction Program, which will provide more than $1 billion in financial and technical assistance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions nationwide.
The agencies issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) on Friday. Responses are due Aug. 26, 2024.
This round of funds will specifically help small oil and gas operators transition to technologies that will help reduce greenhouse gases while also supporting partnerships that improve emission measurements. The funds will also speed up repairs of methane leaks from low-producing wells, improve community access to data and enhance the detection and measurement of emissions from oil and gas operations.
“These investments … will drive the deployment of available and advanced technologies to better understand where methane emissions are coming from,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement. “That will help us more effectively reduce harmful pollution, tackle the climate crisis and create good-paying jobs.”
In December, the agencies made $350 million in grants available to 14 states to help identify and cut methane emissions from low-producing conventional oil and gas wells. Funding was based on each state’s proportion of the total number of low-producing conventional wells. Texas received the largest amount – more than $134 million, which will be administered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Photo by Maxim Tolchinskiy on Unsplash
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