The US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy announced approximately $850 million for projects selected for negotiation that will help small oil and gas operators, Tribes, and other entities across the country to reduce, monitor, measure, and quantify methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

The funding builds on more than 100 actions from the Biden-Harris Administration since 2023 to reduce methane emissions, including the finalization of an EPA rule that is expected to reduce methane emissions from covered oil and gas sources by 80% from 2024 to 2038 compared to projected emissions without the rule.

By mitigating legacy air pollution and supporting small oil and natural gas operators, the projects will help reduce methane emissions through available and innovative technologies. Additionally, they will create partnerships to enhance emissions measurement and provide transparent data to affected communities. One Tribal consortium, 11 universities, and 20 private companies were selected for projects across the Nation to deploy and test new and existing methane mitigation technologies:

• Three projects will help small operators across the country significantly reduce methane emissions from low-producing oil and natural gas operations, using commercially available technology solutions.

• Thirty-one projects will accelerate the deployment of early-commercial technology solutions to reduce methane emissions from new and existing equipment.

• Four projects will improve communities’ access to empirical emissions data and participation in monitoring methane emissions.

• Five projects will enhance the detection and measurement of methane emissions from oil and gas operations at a regional scale.

In total, EPA and DOE are partnering to provide $1.36 billion in financial and technical assistance as part of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program. DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, under the purview of DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, will manage the selected projects.