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EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

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Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#61

Post by ianleeclark »

Reason077 wrote: post #46
outworlder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities.

> ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions bec…

> That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money.

And guess who is making donations, hiring nephews, and making up parts of portfolios. What the parent was saying is that externalities don't matter to these people because we don't value externalities as a society.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#62

Post by Reason077 »

Finnucane wrote: post #56
Reason077 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions bec…

Sure, but oil companies have the narrow view. External costs to society: they care not. Any cost they can pass on to you, they will.

Of course. But is it government’s role solely to boost oil company profits?

Or should they consider these against long-term costs incurred by everyone? Surely there is a middle ground that works for everyone. It’s not as if major oil companies are struggling to survive.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#63

Post by hcurtiss »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #2

It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. I grew up in a time when rivers were red or green depending on what type of leather the factory upstream was processing at the time. The only fish you could see were dead. Breathing in cities was hard. Environmental regulation is a big success story that improved the lives of countless people while com…

I'm not sure how old you are, but it's been a very long time since that was true. You're right that the Clean Water Act was as a big success, but those successes were mostly realized decades ago. At some point, the cost of ever-more stringent environmental regulation outweighs the benefit. In many contexts (e.g., air regulation), there are strong arguments that we are at that point. That is, the cost of incrementally more regulation is very, very high, and the benefit to anyone is very difficult to discern. Whether or not you believe that's true in the context of GHGs largely depends on your overall view of the benefit of mitigating climate change, but your comments seemed directed toward environmental regulation as a whole, and whether any regulation has gone too far.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#64

Post by adammunich »

yalogin wrote: post #55

Not trying to make a political statement here but more about people and what they care about in general. Its amazing to me that trump's support is still at 40-45% in the country. The people living in the same country can see things unfolding in front of their eyes and make completely different decisions on them is fascinating to me. When I talk to my friends who are staunch trump supporters, they give me some fox new…

It's about owning the libs... righteous indignation

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#65

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

natch wrote: post #21
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bernie Sanders supported not only going 100% renewables as quickly as possible, but also banning hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") [1]. Silver lining is Aramco and COVID is doing what American's politicians didn't have the fortitude to do: force the scaling down of the US oil and gas industry and the inherent reduction in fossil demand from reducing commuting and air travel (respectively). I'm unsure how anyone can a…

> due to luck Not just due to luck. Due to a lot of hard work by a lot of people.

I don't want to diminish that work, but most environmentalists were pretty confident that renewable energy technology would be much harder than it's ended up being. Prior to the last decade, the idea that renewables would be cheaper on a per-KWh basis was hardly a gleam in anyone's eye; environmental discourse focused entirely on why the higher costs of renewables were justified by hidden costs of depending on fossil fuels.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#66

Post by pas »

sschueller wrote: post #37
throwaway5752 wrote: post #7

I suggest changing the headline to "outgoing administration continues to sabotage government for next administration as popularity continues to decline during incompetent response to viral pandemic". Another example of something that was so important they waited until less than 3 months before the election to do it. It hardly needs saying, but this is devastatingly bad environmental and climate policy.

He might get re-elected. To me it seem like the DNC is doing everything it can to make that happen. :/

Could you explain this for someone outside the US?

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#67

Post by nickff »

vanusa wrote: post #57
spaetzleesser wrote: post #2

It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. I grew up in a time when rivers were red or green depending on what type of leather the factory upstream was processing at the time. The only fish you could see were dead. Breathing in cities was hard. Environmental regulation is a big success story that improved the lives of countless people while com…

Actually it's quite easy to understand. It all comes down to their ideology, which in a nutshell comes down to: maximizing profits and (perceived) short-term gains for its core constituency (i.e. business elites) - and where that's not quite possible, at least keep the illusion of an every-expanding, anything goes "free market" system chugging along for another year or two -- at the expense of everyone and everything…

The demographics of voting are not so clear-cut (though income is correlated with votes), and the bigger gap is really between male and female voters.[1] There is also abundant evidence that people do not vote in their economic self-interest.[2]

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/does-yo...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#68

Post by ianleeclark »

enraged_camel wrote: post #50
sschueller wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might get re-elected. To me it seem like the DNC is doing everything it can to make that happen. :/

What exactly is the DNC doing to make Trump get re-elected?

Not accepting largely popular policy positions into their party platform is one.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#69

Post by jandrese »

Finnucane wrote: post #56
Reason077 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions bec…

Sure, but oil companies have the narrow view. External costs to society: they care not. Any cost they can pass on to you, they will.

Those long term costs will be a political disadvantage for liberals, as they will give the GOP plenty of talking points about how they want to take away good honest coal mining jobs. This is the long game in action. Force liberals to make the hard decisions to save the planet, then completely own them with propaganda about those decisions.

It's a winning strategy. Not only in the US, but across most of the Anglo sphere. As an added bonus it provides huge payoffs to billionaires at the cost of the poor and middle class.

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