President Obama’s special assistant for energy and climate change, Dan Utech, recently rolled out the administration’s Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions, a key component of the administration’s ambitious Climate Action Plan. The Climate Action Plan, which was announced by the president June 25, 2013, calls for America to reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The Methane Reduction Strategy is not law or regulation; it is a “policy document,” but it will have wide-ranging impact on Americans and American businesses, especially the oil and gas sectors.

The Climate Action Plan took its cue from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), decision, which held that greenhouse gases are air pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. Because the 800-pound gorilla for carbon emissions is the power generating sector, the Climate Action Plan’s call for emissions reductions starts there. The Supreme Court-mandated, EPA-proposed rule for emissions from new power plants under Clean Air Act Section 111(b) was issued in August 2013. The similarly mandated EPA rule for existing power plants, i.e., the “Section 111(d) rule,” is drafted by the EPA in proposed form and is currently under review by the Office of Management and Budget. That highly anticipated draft rule is expected to give states the flexibility to implement emissions reduction plans for the power generating sector that reflect the degree of emissions reductions achievable through the application of the “best system of emissions reduction” (BSER) that has been adequately demonstrated.

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