Considering ‘Social Costs’ of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Utah

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is considering leasing six parcels in Utah for oil and gas extraction. One of those parcels is in Grand County. It’s a modest offer, especially compared to the era of ‘energy dominance’ under the Trump administration. 

But what’s really new is how the agency is looking at these parcels. Their draft environmental assessment is their most involved attempt at including the potential costs of emissions in leasing. 

“It’s quite – quite interesting,” said Landon Newell, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “Essentially it’s the agency’s – to date – best attempt at trying to calculate greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas development on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.”

Utah is responsible for the fourth highest level of emissions from public lands in the country. But there’s been disagreement about the costs of those emissions. Under Trump it was basically zero. 

“I’m sure the [BLM] will receive significant pushback either claiming that the number is too low or claiming that the number is too high. All that still has to work its way through the process,” said Newell. “But at a basic level, it’s the agency’s first legitimate attempt at understanding this issue.”

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Oil and gas development on federal lease managed by BLM California. Credit BLM

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Kate Groetzinger of the Center for Western Priorities said this analysis could limit leases in the future.

“It opens the door for them to, down the road, include the climate impacts of individual leases and actually make decisions based on those impacts,” Groetzinger said. “But I don’t think that we’ll see that in this lease sale – at least in Utah.”

Taking these costs into account, the BLM has offered alternatives for the parcels.

“One thing that’s interesting in the environmental analysis for this lease sale is that they actually proposed a pretty aggressive alternative that prioritizes recreation. So that alternative would only lease around 100 acres in the entire state,” Groetzinger explained. “So it would take out 97 percent of the parcels under consideration.”

The United Nations climate summit in Scotland ends this week. During his visit, President Biden pledged to help reduce overall methane emissions worldwide by 30 percent in the next decade. Proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations aim to do just that, explained Groetzinger. 

“They make venting illegal,” she said. “Venting is when oil and gas companies just intentionally release a ton of methane into the atmosphere, because it’s not economical for them to trap it and try to actually sell it to someone.”

NASA satellite images have shown a ‘hot spot’ of methane over the Four Corners region. This methane often comes from leaky infrastructure which new rules hope to remedy, Groetzinger said. 

“The new rules would require more inspection of existing infrastructure,” she said. “This [includes] pipelines that have leaky joints and wellheads that have components on them that are just leaking gas out into the atmosphere.” 

Groetzinger said these inspections could be a job creator in Utah. But without the option of venting, she added there’s a chance companies could flare more of their methane – which has its own costs. 

Justin Higginbottom reported this story