Blueprint for a Comprehensive Oil and Gas Methane Regulation

The blueprint proposes a three-goal layered regulatory strategy to reduce oil and gas methane emissions: achieving immediate reductions via equipment and work practice standards, implementing compliance and emissions reporting, and continuously improving for deeper cuts. It emphasizes the use of OGMP 2.0 standards for MRV and suggests that import standards can be used to align foreign supplier emissions with domestic requirements.

• An effective regulatory strategy should follow a layered approach to meet different time-horizon goals: short-term immediate reductions through equipment and work practice standards, medium-term reporting and demonstration of compliance and emissions, and long-term continuous improvement for deeper reductions.
• Immediate methane reductions can be achieved through prescriptive equipment standards—such as replacing natural gas-driven pneumatic controllers with zero-emitting alternatives and installing vapor recovery units—and work practice standards, including leak detection and repair programs and flare monitoring.
• Regulatory frameworks should distinguish between compliance reporting, which provides evidence that operators are meeting specific regulatory requirements, and emissions reporting, which quantifies emissions over a period using a standard methodology.
• The document recommends that emissions reporting be based on rigorous measurements aligned with the OGMP 2.0 Level 5 international standard and include third-party verification.
• To drive deeper reductions beyond prescriptive standards, regulators can layer performance-based or economics-based approaches, such as intensity standards, once operators can rigorously report at OGMP 2.0 Level 5.
• Import standards can be used to incentivize foreign suppliers to minimize methane emissions by setting intensity thresholds or reporting requirements equivalent to domestic rules, as seen with the 2024 EU Methane Regulation.

APA

Clean Air Task Force (n.d.). Blueprint for a Comprehensive Oil and Gas Methane Regulation. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/11103647/Blueprint-for-a-Comprehensive-Oil-and-Gas-Methane-Regulation.pdf

Chicago

Clean Air Task Force. Blueprint for a Comprehensive Oil and Gas Methane Regulation. n.d. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/11103647/Blueprint-for-a-Comprehensive-Oil-and-Gas-Methane-Regulation.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Clean Air Task Force |title=Blueprint for a Comprehensive Oil and Gas Methane Regulation |url=https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/11103647/Blueprint-for-a-Comprehensive-Oil-and-Gas-Methane-Regulation.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{cleanairtaskforcendblueprint, author = {{Clean Air Task Force}}, title = {{Blueprint for a Comprehensive Oil and Gas Methane Regulation}}, institution = {Clean Air Task Force}, url = {https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/11103647/Blueprint-for-a-Comprehensive-Oil-and-Gas-Methane-Regulation.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }