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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

#81

Post by JKCalhoun »

jfengel wrote: post #26
JKCalhoun wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only have my confidence in the U.S. voting public renewed or absolutely shattered this November.

Even the outcome I would prefer isn't going to come anywhere near renewing my confidence. If it happens at all, it will only because a catastrophe made the incumbent's incompetence affect some of his supporters directly -- many of whom will still, in fact, remain supporters. Even before that, enormous numbers of people were harmed, but they weren't among his supporters. Indeed, for them, the negative outcomes were th…

November will not fix what's wrong, it will begin to fix what's wrong.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#82

Post by jandrese »

ngngngng wrote: post #73
jandrese wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the 0.1%.

Ok Mr. Sanders. I meant like literally. Where does the money that is spent meeting environmental regulations go? The money is not just being burnt up. It's going to a different segment of the economy, I'm just not versed in what that means or looks like.

Oh, you meant the environmental regulation money? I misread your question, I thought you were talking about the money saved by the oil and gas companies when they removed said regulation.

Anyway, that money is generally spent on equipment and processes to clean up after whatever the company is doing. Collection pods for contaminated water. Scrubbers on chimneys. Direct pay to inspectors to come out and make sure you aren't trying to cheat to save money. That sort of thing. It spreads out across the entire economy. Markets and industries are formed to support finding the cheapest way to keep the processes in question from damaging the environment and requiring much more expensive cleanup (think EPA superfund and class action lawsuits over medical conditions suffered by nearby communities) after the fact.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#83

Post by ianleeclark »

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #80
ianleeclark wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you name three? Without Medicare for all, seeing as it’s not actually a popular platform issue.

Hey, let's ignore this one issue that has majority acceptance across political lines and upwards of 70% Democrat approval because I've got a grudge against it.

You can do what you want, throwaway account. When you get Matt Gaetz in 2024 let me know how it feels. 4 years of more means testing will get you there real quick.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#84

Post by amluto »

hcurtiss wrote: post #63
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…

I would believe that the costs of further clean air improvement are high as measured by annoyance to established people, but not necessarily cost. Where I live, the following would help particulate pollution:

- Eliminating existing grandfathered-in wood burning fireplaces. Costs almost nothing as measured by dollars.

- Emission controls on restaurant exhaust. This is currently required only for restaurants that chat-grill more than a certain amount of beef. Restaurants that smoke up whole blocks grilling pork, lamb, veggies, etc are exempt. These emission controls are not that expensive.

- Outdated fuel-burning devices such as 2-stroke leaf blowers and old cars. Electric leaf blowers are cheap now. Old cars are fun, and banning or taxing them would be unpopular but would cost almost zero dollars.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#85

Post by jandrese »

Reason077 wrote: post #79
jandrese wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sphe…

”Not only in the US, but across most of the Anglo sphere.” Not in the UK. Coal use has plummeted by 84% in 5 years (84 million tonnes in 2014 to 8 million tonnes in 2019), while renewable energy has been hugely expanded. All under “right wing” (Conservative) governments. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/09/is-this-...

Coal use has collapsed in the US too entirely for economic reasons, but it doesn't stop the politicians from making ads about how liberals are coming for your jobs because they hate your way of life and airing them constantly in rural areas.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#86

Post by sonotathrowaway »

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…

How many of those things materially hurt them in the short term? I assume most conservatives don’t care about an issue unless they themselves are going to affected by it in the immediate term.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#87

Post by roland35 »

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…

Yes, pollution regulation is a classic example of something which has a huge cost on one group (business) and a minor benefit to a large group (everyone else), but the minority is much more motivated. It is an unfortunate byproduct of our government with special interests.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#88

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

It's not that hard.

Some regulations have low cost and high benefit. They should be kept.

Others have high cost and low benefit. They should be removed or reformed.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#90

Post by sonotathrowaway »

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #80
ianleeclark wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you name three? Without Medicare for all, seeing as it’s not actually a popular platform issue.

I’ll reply to this since I cannot reply to the sibling comment - but Medicare for all is not an actually popular or feasible idea. The polls that show support for Medicare for all have wording you the effect of “would you like free healthcare?”. Support quickly drops once polls start asking about the real trade offs that would have to be made in order to actually afford this change in healthcare, and the tax hikes needed to make it work.

Trying to pass off m4a as a feasible plan isn’t real, so it’s supporters all cling to support that a magical free plan would garner. They don’t actually have a plan to make it feasible, nor do they take the time to explain that part to their followers.

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