The Biden administration’s emerging efforts to slash emissions of methane — a greenhouse gas triggering alarms across the globe — is setting the stage for a new clash among lawmakers, agricultural interests and the energy industry.
Carbon dioxide commands most of the attention when it comes to plans to combat climate change, but the Biden administration and some Democrats are shifting focus to methane, the greenhouse gas second-most responsible for heating the planet.
Methane emissions have boomed since 2007, largely from oil and gas production propelled by the fracking revolution, and atmospheric concentrations are at their highest level in 800,000 years, according to the latest United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Scientists around the world increasingly say that curbing the gas — which traps heat 86 times more effectively over 20 years than carbon dioxide — is the clearest near-term way to put the planet on a more sustainable temperature trajectory.
But wrestling methane is presenting a new round of political and practical complications for the Biden administration: Agriculture, including livestock and land-based systems, accounts for 40 percent of global methane emissions — spurring concern among Republicansand farm-state Democrats about regulatoryefforts to tackle the problem.
Senate Democrats plan to include a so-called “methane polluter fee” in their $3.5 trillion budget resolution that would hit energy producers that vent or burn off excess methane and compressors used to pressurize and transport natural gas. Several also introduced legislation this month requiring refiners and oil and gas producers operating in the United States to pay into a fund based on a share of their global carbon and methane emissions.
“The methane polluter fee targets industry leakage, which even the fossil fuel industry has a hard time defending,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told POLITICO. “I think that the public more and more cares about climate change and people understand that methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas – indeed more powerful than carbon dioxide. So it seems like addressing it is a good thing.”
Whitehouse said the Senate Budget Committee informed him that his bill with Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) will form the basis of the polluter fee. That legislation calls for a $1,800 per ton fee on oil and gas producers whose emissions rate perform worse than regional averages.
Environmental allies who have joined Democrats in challenging the fossil fuel industry’s political power, misinformation tactics and for causing climate change also believe addressing methane is a winning political strategy.
“It’s to help the worst performers to clean up their act. It’s to get them to avoid paying the fee because we’re basically setting money on fire,” National Wildlife Federation CEO Collin O’Mara said. “It’s great policy, but I also think it’s good politics to be incentivizing companies to reduce their waste, which in the long run is going to end up saving consumers money.”
Mark Brownstein, senior vice president for energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, drew connections to ongoing wildfires, droughts and floodsin reasoning the public is ready to embrace a fee on methane emissions. He noted that already available technology can reduce oil and gas methane emissions 75 percent from current levels, and that the evolution of remote sensing by drone and aircraft has also reduced costs for curbing methane.
“Over a quarter of the warming we’re seeing right now is being driven by methane emissions from human activities,” he said. “We know that by controlling methane pollution from the oil and gas industry we can make a major difference in addressing the climate problem that’s affecting all of us today. That’s the key issue.”
But Republicans are preparing to fight Democrats’ efforts by saying it would increase costs to everyday Americans for things like home heating, electricity and groceries.
A fee on methane emissions would function as an implicit tax hike on Americans with less disposable income, making it “violative” of Biden’s pledge to avoid raising taxes on people earning less than $400,000, said Mike McKenna, a Republican lobbyist who works with energy companies.
“What the Republicans need to do is just remind everybody there has to be cheaper ways to do this,” he said.
Some have taken to calling the proposed methane polluter fee a “cow tax” — tied to longstanding GOP efforts to portray Biden and Democrats as going after Americans’ hamburgers.
“Our hard-working livestock producers should not have to worry about being subject to onerous regulations and increased production costs,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said this month on the Senate floor about Democrats’ proposal for a fee on methane emissions. “This ‘cow tax’ will just result in higher food costs for Americans at the grocery store at a time when inflation already has caused prices to skyrocket.”
The Biden administration is weighing in on the side of curbing methane emissions, teasing it has big plans it will soon announce, but understanding that it will walk a fine line in doing so as any comprehensive policy to curb methane would have to tackle agriculture. That presents challenges to Democrats wary of alienating rural and centrist voters. Sothe administration has been careful to avoid talk of new regulations for agriculture, where livestock like cows account for a large share of emissions, instead speaking in terms of carrots such as incentives and voluntary programs for agricultural methane.
On the energy side,EPA Administrator Michael Regan tweeted after the IPCC report release that “we are developing strong standards to reduce methane — a potent greenhouse gas identified by the IPCC for urgent action.” Those rules would build on Obama-era standards for controlling methane leaks at new and existing oil and gas operations. They are on track for completion in September and would utilize new technology to help locate so-called “super-emitting” methane leaks, according to an EPA spokesperson.
“Reading the tea leaves, I think this administration is likely to use its whole of government approach and make sure all of its relevant departments — including Agriculture and Energy — are doing everything possible to reduce this potent climate pollution,” said Sarah Smith, super pollutants director at environmental group Clean Air Task Force.
The Biden administration is calculating just how much damage methane causes. White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy’s office is working on a social cost of methane, which would assign a monetary value to the benefits of reducing methane that the administration could use to justify regulations.
“We absolutely are looking at climate change and looking to ensure that we consider climate across the administration every action we take. And part of that is revisiting the social cost of carbon and the social cost of methane, which is an ongoing reassessment at this point,” McCarthy said in a recent interview.
Another potential complication lies in the international approach to combating methane emissions. The governments of Japan and other countriesand pressure from U.S. oil and gas firms are working to keep options for natural gas open for countries that currently run on coal, such as those in energy-poor Africa, since burning that fuel produces half the carbon dioxide when burned for electricity.
But greens say an instant switch to zero-emitting energy like wind and solar is all that can save the planet, arguing that methane leaks from producing and transporting natural gas outweigh its supposed climate advantage over coal.
Departments of Treasury, State and Energy also are putting the final touches on an international climate finance plan, which is expected to include an emissions performance standard that would guide investments in overseas projects, said Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director for international climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council and Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager at Friends of the Earth.
The finance plan will likely include some exemptions that would allow fossil fuel finance — particularly oil and natural gas — in cases where it promotes development or national security objectives. Between 2008 and 2018, nearly two-thirds of the additional 47 gigawatts of energy capacity supported by bilateral U.S. finance went to fossil fuel projects, particularly natural gas, according to research published last week by researchers at Boston University Global Development Policy Center and Princeton University.
Environmental campaigners hope to limit exemptions and are pressing the Biden administration that any investments in natural gas, such as financing facilities in other countries to import liquefied natural gas, are inconsistent with its goals of keeping the planet from heating 1.5 degrees C — a case the IPCC report makes all the more clear, Schmidt said.
“What they’ve been signaling to folks is it’s going to be an aggressive standard, it’s going to be a strong signal to the rest of the world,” Schmidt said. “But we haven’t seen the details.”
The oil and gas industry contends it is self-motivated to stop methane leaks, given any escaping gas is something they would otherwise sell. But the burdens for detecting and repairing those leaks are less significant for larger producers that have said they are open to methane rules compared with smaller U.S. drillers who find regulations onerous — and potentially a death knell. The Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents small drillers, criticized EPA’s efforts as a “‘one-size-fits-all’ approach” that is “inappropriate and disproportionally impacts conventional operations, low production wells, and small businesses.”
Larger companies are concerned about their social license to operate given ever-restrictive climate rules and growing public angst to address rising emissions, said Kevin O’Scannlain, vice president of upstream policy with the American Petroleum Institute. API and major oil and gas companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil have thus advocated for methane regulations, though they also are still significant methane emitters.
API officials have met with top Biden administration personnel, including Regan and McCarthy, to discuss methane regulations.
“We are actively working with the administration in support of the direct regulation of methane from new and existing sources,” O’Scannlain said in emailed responses, adding, “[W]e know there is more work to be done and federal policymaking can play a role.”
But O’Scannlain said API does not support the Democratic push to impose a methane fee on oil and gas producers, which he said would be duplicative of existing regulations while failing to address emissions from agriculture.
Three sources from the oil and gas sector told POLITICO that they see Democratic proposals to include the fee in a $3.5 trillion Senate budget resolution as an avenue to imposing a price on emissions.
“It’s going to be tough,” said an oil and gas industry official, who asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations with companies. “This administration is moving without the wild fluctuationsof the previous one on policy, and it seems to be moving directly.”
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats who control both chambers of the Virginia legislature are hoping to make good on promises made on the campaign trail, including becoming the first Southern state to expand constitutional protections for abortion access.
The House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced three proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday, including a measure to protect reproductive rights. Its members also discussed measures to repeal a now-defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and ways to revise Virginia’s process to restore voting rights for people who served time for felony crimes.
“This meeting was an important next step considering the moment in history we find ourselves in,” Democratic Del. Cia Price, the committee chair, said during a news conference. “We have urgent threats to our freedoms that could impact constituents in all of the districts we serve.”
The at-times raucous meeting will pave the way for the House and Senate to take up the resolutions early next year after lawmakers tabled the measures last January. Democrats previously said the move was standard practice, given that amendments are typically introduced in odd-numbered years. But Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said Wednesday the committee should not have delved into the amendments before next year’s legislative session. He said the resolutions, particularly the abortion amendment, need further vetting.
“No one who is still serving remembers it being done in this way ever,” Gilbert said after the meeting. “Certainly not for something this important. This is as big and weighty an issue as it gets.”
The Democrats’ legislative lineup comes after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, to the dismay of voting-rights advocates, rolled back a process to restore people’s civil rights after they completed sentences for felonies. Virginia is the only state that permanently bans anyone convicted of a felony from voting unless a governor restores their rights.
“This amendment creates a process that is bounded by transparent rules and criteria that will apply to everybody — it’s not left to the discretion of a single individual,” Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, the patron of the voting rights resolution, which passed along party lines, said at the news conference.
Though Democrats have sparred with the governor over their legislative agenda, constitutional amendments put forth by lawmakers do not require his signature, allowing the Democrat-led House and Senate to bypass Youngkin’s blessing.
Instead, the General Assembly must pass proposed amendments twice in at least two years, with a legislative election sandwiched between each statehouse session. After that, the public can vote by referendum on the issues. The cumbersome process will likely hinge upon the success of all three amendments on Democrats’ ability to preserve their edge in the House and Senate, where they hold razor-thin majorities.
It’s not the first time lawmakers have attempted to champion the three amendments. Republicans in a House subcommittee killed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights in 2022, a year after the measure passed in a Democrat-led House. The same subcommittee also struck down legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal an amendment from 2006 banning marriage equality.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 16-5 in favor of legislation protecting same-sex marriage, with four Republicans supporting the resolution.
“To say the least, voters enacted this (amendment) in 2006, and we have had 100,000 voters a year become of voting age since then,” said Del. Mark Sickles, who sponsored the amendment as one of the first openly gay men serving in the General Assembly. “Many people have changed their opinions of this as the years have passed.”
A constitutional amendment protecting abortion previously passed the Senate in 2023 but died in a Republican-led House. On Wednesday, the amendment passed on party lines.
If successful, the resolution proposed by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring would be part of a growing trend of reproductive rights-related ballot questions given to voters. Since 2022, 18 questions have gone before voters across the U.S., and they have sided with abortion rights advocates 14 times.
The voters have approved constitutional amendments ensuring the right to abortion until fetal viability in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. Voters also passed a right-to-abortion measure in Nevada in 2024, but it must be passed again in 2026 to be added to the state constitution.
As lawmakers debated the measure, roughly 18 members spoke. Mercedes Perkins, at 38 weeks pregnant, described the importance of women making decisions about their own bodies. Rhea Simon, another Virginia resident, anecdotally described how reproductive health care shaped her life.
Then all at once, more than 50 people lined up to speak against the abortion amendment.
“Let’s do the compassionate thing and care for mothers and all unborn children,” resident Sheila Furey said.
The audience gave a collective “Amen,” followed by a round of applause.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.
He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — In a Cypriot National Guard camp, Ukrainians are being trained on how to identify, locate and dispose of landmines and other unexploded munitions that litter huge swaths of their country, killing and maiming hundreds of people, including children.
Analysts say Ukraine is among the countries that are the most affected by landmines and discarded explosives, as a result of Russia’s ongoing war.
According to U.N. figures, some 399 people have been killed and 915 wounded from landmines and other munitions since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, equal to the number of casualties reported from 2014-2021. More than 1 in 10 of those casualties have been children.
The economic impact is costing billions to the Ukrainian economy. Landmines and other munitions are preventing the sowing of 5 million hectares, or 10%, of the country’s agricultural land.
Cyprus stepped up to offer its facilities as part of the European Union’s Military Assistance Mission to Ukraine. So far, almost 100 Ukrainian armed forces personnel have taken part in three training cycles over the last two years, said Cyprus Foreign Ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis.
“We are committed to continuing this support for as long as it takes,” Gotsis told the Associated Press, adding that the Cyprus government has covered the 250,000 euro ($262,600) training cost.
Cyprus opted to offer such training owing to its own landmine issues dating back five decades when the island nation was ethnically divided when Turkey invaded following a coup that sought union with Greece. The United Nations has removed some 27,000 landmines from a buffer zone that cuts across the island, but minefields remain on either side. The Cypriot government says it has disposed of all anti-personnel mines in line with its obligations under an international treaty that bans the use of such munitions.
In Cyprus, Ukrainians undergo rigorous theoretical and practical training over a five-week Basic Demining and Clearance course that includes instruction on distinguishing and safely handling landmines and other explosive munitions, such as rockets, 155 mm artillery shells, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells.
Theoretical training uses inert munitions identical to the actual explosives.
Most of the course is comprised of hands-on training focusing on the on-site destruction of unexploded munitions using explosives, the chief training officer told the Associated Press. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to disclose his identity for security reasons.
“They’re trained on ordnance disposal using real explosives,” the officer said. “That will be the trainees’ primary task when they return.”
Cypriot officials said the Ukrainian trainees did not want to be either interviewed or photographed.
Defusing discarded munitions or landmines in areas where explosive charges can’t be used — for instance, near a hospital — is not part of this course because that’s the task of highly trained teams of disposal experts whose training can last as long as eight months, the officer said.
Trainees, divided into groups of eight, are taught how to operate metal detectors and other tools for detecting munitions like prodders — long, thin rods which are used to gently probe beneath the ground’s surface in search of landmines and other explosive ordnance.
Another tool is a feeler, a rod that’s used to detect booby-trapped munitions. There are many ways to booby-trap such munitions, unlike landmines which require direct pressure to detonate.
“Booby-trapped munitions are a widespread phenomenon in Ukraine,” the chief training officer explained.
Training, primarily conducted by experts from other European Union countries, takes place both in forested and urban areas at different army camps and follows strict safety protocols.
The short, intense training period keeps the Ukrainians focused.
“You see the interest they show during instruction: they ask questions, they want to know what mistakes they’ve made and the correct way of doing it,” the officer said.
Humanitarian data and analysis group ACAPS said in a Jan. 2024 report that 174,000 sq. kilometers (67,182 sq. miles) or nearly 29% of Ukraine’s territory needs to be surveyed for landmines and other explosive ordnance.
More than 10 million people are said to live in areas where demining action is needed.
Since 2022, Russian forces have used at least 13 types of anti-personnel mines, which target people. Russia never signed the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning the use of anti-personnel mines, but the use of such mines is nonetheless considered a violation of its obligations under international law.
Russia also uses 13 types of anti-tank mines.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines said in its 2023 Landmine Monitor report that Ukrainian government forces may have also used antipersonnel landmines in contravention of the Mine Ban Treaty in and around the city of Izium during 2022, when the city was under Russian control.
