PITTSBURGH—A step change on the part of industry to reduce methane emissions has failed to fend off new federal efforts to regulate it, which will result in a huge impact on the midstream sector, a senior official with the Gas Processors Association told attendees at the recent Marcellus-Utica Midstream conference.

“We’ve seen methane emissions decrease—not because of EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] but because of industry—by 35%, yet at the same time they’ve increased production since 2007, in the same time period, by 22%,” said Matthew Hite, the Tulsa, Okla.-based trade group’s Washington-based vice president for government affairs.

“Just get out of the way and let industry do its job,” he said. “The reductions haven’t been based on the EPA’s efforts. They’ve been based on industry getting out there, stepping up and reducing emissions.”

The proposed methane emissions regulations are part of the Clean Air Act and are what Hite called one of the pillars of the Obama administration’s efforts to meet guidelines of the agreement signed at the United Nations COP 21 climate change conference in Paris last November and December.

But it’s not the only pillar, he said. The Clean Power Plan, the final version of which was introduced last August, inserts a type of “cap and trade” mechanism into the regulatory process. In the 14 months of negotiations leading to the final version of the rules that would be enforced by the EPA, natural gas lost out to an intense lobbying effort by the renewable energy industry, Hite said. This despite U.S. Energy Information Administration statistics that showed gas surpassing coal in use for power generation during parts of last year for the first time.

“The fact that you’re going to have a decreased role for natural gas for no reason whatsoever is extremely problematic,” Hite said. “This is something to keep an eye on. It’s tied up in the courts.”

Another issue that will likely sneak up on many operators involves the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). New rules mandate upgrades to measurement equipment that gauge production on federal land. Hite noted that many in the industry will not pay much attention to this, assuming that the regulations do not apply because their measurement points are on private land. Where the measurement equipment is located, however, is irrelevant if the hydrocarbons are flowing from federal lands.

“Make sure this is on your radar screen,” he warned. “Don’t think because you don’t have operations on BLM land that it doesn’t impact you.”

Not all decisions emanating from Washington spell gloom for the industry. In addition to the lifting of the crude oil export ban, Hite noted a permit streamlining provision in last year’s highway bill that amounts to a win.

“What this provision does is it creates a permitting timetable for major infrastructure projects that allows you to get rid of duplication in state-level environmental reviews, avoiding duplication of state work by federal reviewers,” he said. “It makes sure that if an agency has a role to play, they get involved in it earlier. They can’t just come in at the last minute and hold things up.”

Joseph Markman can be reached at jmarkman@hartenergy.com.