Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 213 posts

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#131

Post by crocodiletears »

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…

The administration is trying to divorce us from much of our dependency on the global order. Part of this agenda comes with the (un?)fortunate fact that we can no longer economically farm out as many of the negative externalities of our consumption to the third world, if we want to mantain it.

From that perspective, deregulating areas which prevent us from competing in historically outsourced industries with large ecological footprints makes perfect sense to them.

I expect this to have a bet-negative impact on our ecosystems, and quality of life. But with any luck, our more informed public - faced with the real externalities of their lifestyles, will be more readily swayed to adjust their consumption patterns in order to make for a better world.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#132

Post by refurb »

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.

You need to get out of your bubble more.

Automatically painting the other side as stupid is why the Democrats lost in 2016 (i.e. "deplorables"). It only drivers those voters to the other side.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#133

Post by rayiner »

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…

This is an utterly specious claim that overlooks the fact that the oil and gas industry is highly competitive and sells commodities. As a result, Exxon, for example, has a net profit margin well under 10%: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XOM/exxon/profit-m.... (Compare Google at 20%+ https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/prof...) Because of commodification and competition, almost all cost reductions flow to consumers. If fracking causes the cost of natural gas to drop in half, the producers will capture some profits in the downswing, but most of the benefit will go to consumers who enjoy a large drop in prices. At the same time, oil and gas production creates well-paying jobs for skilled, non-college workers. All that makes policies that make oil and gas products cheaper popular with voters not just popular with "business elites." Indeed, energy prices are highly correlated with both employment rates and Presidential approval ratings: https://seekingalpha.com/article/252704-the-price-of-gas-and...

The "maximizing profits" trope simply doesn't explain why oil and gas has such an outsize influence. If profits are what mattered, the tech sector would have tremendous influence, but it doesn't. It doesn't, because unlike oil and gas it doesn't employ tons of non-college workers in swing states, and the cost of their products doesn't hit everyone in the wallet once a week. Profits are secondary or tertiary at best.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#134

Post by refurb »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #18
xeromal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly this whole situation is political but I'd make 2 points. 1. You might be surprised at the election outcome. 2. The headline is based on the article, not what people think it should be.

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

"The voting public is only smart when my preferred candidate wins."

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#135

Post by 12xo »

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…

If its good for the masses, Trump will almost certainly do the polar opposite. He has proven to be one of the worst people in our country's history and yet somehow, 100million American's support the guy and his actions. Odd since 99/100 are in direct contrast to their actual needs...

History will not be kind to Trump or to his followers. The coming economic shift with automation are going to eat the last of their jobs and their future. To them, as long as it makes the Left cry, its totally worth destroying everything along the way...

Ignorance is not a virtue as one cannot eat, drink or breath money.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#136

Post by rayiner »

dmurray wrote: post #29
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.

I'd say it goes further than that. With the polarisation of American politics, rolling back environmental regulations is politically popular with one cohort of voters just because it's unpopular with the "other" side. Repealing regulations (not necessarily environmental ones) was popular enough to be a Trump campaign promise, after all.

Cheap energy is popular with everyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVGY3sIBsA

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#137

Post by refurb »

Reason077 wrote: post #12

Isn’t the name “EPA” increasingly inaccurate? Shouldn’t it now be called something like the Oil & Gas Promotion Agency (OGPA)?

The EPA seemed to do a poor job even under the Obama administration.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431223703...

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#138

Post by sonotathrowaway »

ianleeclark wrote: post #125
sonotathrowaway wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See I guess that’s the exact reason I’m not a sanders supporter. I care about outcomes and couldn’t care less about the strategies used to get there. I see a public option as feasible, cost effective, minimally disruptive, and effective. I don’t fantasize about a 40 trillion dollar plan that would upend the largest American industry with uncertain effects. I’m especially not fantasizing about this effort being led by…

Yeah, instead of all that fantasizing, you're instead fantasizing a world wherein 40 trillion was the quoted number. Again, when Tucker Carlson is the president, think long and hard about this moment.

Sanders actually played fast & dumb about the m4a numbers, then attacked warren when she tried putting actual numbers to the plan and tried to make it feasible. And the plan would actually cost around 40 trillion over a decade to implement, sorry if you were misled.

And didn’t sanders lose this primary worse than his first? Don’t blame us for whatever conservative you want to slot into the president slot next, blame sanders for campaigning for the past four years only to bank on Biden and Kamala splitting the black southern vote as his path to victory, then getting destroyed when that didn’t happen. There was no reason for him to antagonize those voters and tell them they don’t share his politics - at some point you’re just going to have to admit that sanders is a poor politician, as the rest of Washington has long realized.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#139

Post by Fjolsvith »

michaelmrose wrote: post #122
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone summarizes their political rivals' positions as "they're just nasty people who hate me and want to oppose anything I like", I don't think you should put a tremendous amount of stock in that.

This would be an easier argument to make if one side wasn't making an issue out of wearing masks, fighting for their right to spread a deadly disease to others, and in some cases actually attacking people for asking them to wear masks.

Or the other side trying to force funding marijuana legalization and abortion clinics by holding stimulus relief and supplemental unemployment benefits hostage.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#140

Post by fmakunbound »

makerofspoons wrote: post #22

Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, provides one of the most concise and sobering summaries of the trajectory of our planet as methane and carbon emissions continue to rise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s It's one of the first things I think about when I read articles like this that demonstrate that not only are the powers that be not taking climate change seriously, they are actively accelerating…

Just watched that in its entirety and highly recommend. I think you can count on our species NOT solving this crisis. I'm kind of glad I don't have and don't want kids, but that's nothing compared to the inevitable, massive loss of life in our biosphere.
Post reply on HN