Comments on Financial and Technical Assistance Funding under the Methane Emissions Reduction Program

A coalition of environmental organizations urges the EPA to prioritize MERP funding for enhanced monitoring, compliance assurance, and the permanent plugging of marginal conventional wells, while limiting financial assistance to private operators.

• The coalition recommends that the EPA prioritize four main areas for the $850 million reserved for all types of wells: enhancing methane emissions monitoring for EPA, states, and tribes; improving Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) reporting and incentives; supporting community protection and engagement; and the permanent mitigation of emissions at marginal wells.
• The authors argue that EPA should prioritize monitoring and compliance assurance because serious noncompliance rates for environmental regulations in the oil and gas sector are often 25% or higher, and can reach 50% to 70% for large facilities with significant health consequences.
• To ensure the effectiveness of the waste emissions charge, the EPA is urged to use funds to gather empirical emissions data through overflights and measurement studies to correct well-documented underreporting in the GHGRP.
• The coalition advises that financial assistance to private operators should be a low priority, limited to small operators, and provided primarily as loans rather than grants to avoid creating 'windfall profit' for companies that could otherwise profit from capturing vented or flared gas.
• For marginal conventional wells, the document recommends a matching grant program to prioritize permanent plugging over temporary mitigation, noting that marginal wells account for approximately 50% of total production site methane emissions despite representing only 6% of national production.
• The authors suggest that MERP funding should focus on active or idle marginal wells rather than orphaned wells, as the latter are already addressed by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's program managed by the Department of Interior.
• The coalition emphasizes that funding for marginal well plugging should be reserved for small owners and operators, estimating that the cost to plug sites owned by operators with 10 or fewer wells is approximately $1.75 billion, which exceeds the $700 million allocated for marginal wells under MERP.

APA

Clean Air Task Force (2023). Comments on Financial and Technical Assistance Funding under the Methane Emissions Reduction Program. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/27171452/merp-financial-technical-assistance-comments.pdf

Chicago

Clean Air Task Force. Comments on Financial and Technical Assistance Funding under the Methane Emissions Reduction Program. 2023. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/27171452/merp-financial-technical-assistance-comments.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Clean Air Task Force |title=Comments on Financial and Technical Assistance Funding under the Methane Emissions Reduction Program |date=2 June 2023 |url=https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/27171452/merp-financial-technical-assistance-comments.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{cleanairtaskforce2023comments, author = {{Clean Air Task Force}}, title = {{Comments on Financial and Technical Assistance Funding under the Methane Emissions Reduction Program}}, publisher = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2023}, month = jun, url = {https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/27171452/merp-financial-technical-assistance-comments.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }