Gas Out

The reporting program is about opening up the oil and gas industry to transparency and understanding what their global warming footprint actually is says Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center.

 Around the planet—save perhaps within the White House—discussions are underway about global warming. But you don’t have to bust over to the United Nations to learn how governments are trying to curb greenhouse gases: New Mexico is in the throes of figuring out how to regulate emissions from the oil and gas industry here in the state.

But before actual reductions can be achieved, the industry needs to tally its emissions.

Beginning this week, the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board will work toward creating a new rule that will guide the oil and gas industry in reporting its carbon emissions. This week, the board is hearing testimony from the state’s Environment Department, as well as a coalition of environmental groups and the industry itself, each of which hopes to influence the creation of the rule.

“The reporting program is about opening up the oil and gas industry to transparency and understanding what their footprint actually is,” Eric Schlenker-Goodrich, an attorney with the Taos-based Western Environmental Law Firm, says. His firm is representing the environmental coalition. Schlenker-Goodrich adds that the public needs to be engaged in the process—but acknowledges that the details are arcane and confusing. “But the faster we act,” he says, “even though it’s complicated and painful, the better.”

Therefore, SFR presents a few must-know terms for people to understand as the rule-making process gets underway.

Greenhouse gases are natural or human-made gases that trap heat within the planet’s atmosphere. The principle gases that human activities generate include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

New Mexico’s new rule would only apply to the oil and gas industry. In New Mexico, the rule would not apply to oil and gas wells themselves, but rather to oil and gas plants, crude oil refineries, power plants and the compressor stations on pipelines that move oil and gas from the ground to plants and consumers.