A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Gas utilities have a problem. That's because natural gas is mostly methane. It's leak-prone and a powerful greenhouse gas. The Biden administration is finishing rules to require gas utilities to find and fix more leaks. The largest source comes from consumer gas meters, outside homes or tucked in a basement. NPR's Jeff Brady begins our story in Philadelphia.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: At a South Philadelphia row house, we're meeting someone who finds gas leaks for a living.
MELISSA OSTROFF: Hi.
BRADY: Hello.
OSTROFF: Nice to meet you.
BRADY: Melissa Ostroff is with the environmental group, Earthworks. She searches gas drilling sites in Pennsylvania for climate polluting methane leaks. But a few years back, as family visited for the holidays, the problem was in her own home.
OSTROFF: And when my sister entered the house, she told me she smelled gas.
BRADY: Ostroff knows gas meters are a big source of leaks, so that was the first place she looked.
OSTROFF: And lo and behold, there was a small, but very continuous leak coming from kind of, like, a pipe fitting around the gas meter.
BRADY: Her utility fixed the leak right away. You can't see methane, but a special infrared camera can. These cost thousands of dollars. Ostroff has one for work. Now she periodically rechecks her meter.
OSTROFF: So we're just walking down the stairs in my basement here.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZING INFRARED CAMERA)
BRADY: She fires up the buzzy sounding camera, points it at her meter and looks at the screen for any billowing type movement.
OSTROFF: Not seeing anything there.
BRADY: Fortunately, there's nothing. Overall, leaks like this are rare. An industry study showed less than 1% of indoor meters leak. And outdoor meters are even less of a risk for causing explosions because the methane disperses into the atmosphere, where it's a problem for the climate. The Federal Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, usually called PHMSA, regulates gas utility pipelines all the way up to customer meters.
In the past, PHMSA focused on big leaks that are safety hazards. Now it must also regulate gas utility leaks that cause environmental damage. That's because of a law President-elect Trump signed at the end of his first term. The Biden administration is crafting rules to implement that law. Attorney Erin Murphy with the Environmental Defense Fund says these proposed rules would require utilities to fix more climate warming leaks.
ERIN MURPHY: I've found, like, 10-year-old leaks, you know, so they've known about this pipeline leak for 10 years and haven't fixed it because they're not required to.
BRADY: Murphy says the proposed rules are not as strict as she'd like, but they're an improvement.
MURPHY: In the proposed rule, PHMSA would require operators to conduct more frequent leak surveys, to use more advanced technologies in those surveys and to fix the leaks that they find more quickly.
BRADY: Gas utilities say they already were reducing methane pollution. Their main trade group, American Gas Association, says methane emissions from utilities are down 70% since 1990.
LLOYD YATES: We like where PHMSA's headed. We think methane reduction is important.
BRADY: Lloyd Yates is the chief executive at Indiana-based gas utility NiSource and the chair of the Gas Association's Board.
YATES: I think the question here, as in anything, is affordability. As you try and drive methane down, you spend more money on that, and you got to do this in a way that's affordable for customers.
BRADY: Given this general support from the industry, most people interviewed for this story don't expect big changes to these regulations from the incoming Trump administration, which didn't respond to a request for comment. The final rules could be released as early as next month.
Jeff Brady, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
