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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Nothing reveals peoples true selves like death.

Take the new law passed by the state legislature in Texas, for instance, regulating abortion of humans who have a detectable heartbeat.

It seems like a pretty reasonable place for a society to begin the discussion about that moment at which an unborn human baby assumes God-given and constitutionally protected rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Perhaps even that most precious Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

Oh, but this is not a reasonable discussion with honest, fair-minded people who care about rights, liberty, life, or even privacy. No, they are frothing zealots who peddle death with a rage hotter than the Taliban and bow to every abortion with blind, religious fervor.

A reasonable reporter seeking reasonable answers asked a reasonable question about President Biden last week. Who does he believe then should look out for the unborn child? the reporter asked.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki could not contain the rage that flickered behind her black eyes.

He believes that its up to a woman to make those decisions, she replied. And up to a woman to make those decisions with her doctor.

In other words: Heartbeat? What heartbeat? I dont hear a heartbeat.

Perhaps realizing she had failed to answer the simple question, Ms. Psaki shifted from not answering the question to attacking the reporter for being born without reproductive organs.

I know youve never faced those choices, nor have you ever been pregnant, the Merchant of Death spat with contempt. But for women out there who have faced those choices, this is an incredibly difficult thing. The president believes that right should be respected.

Wait? What?

What right? Whos right? The right to life? The right to kill? Or the right to privacy? For the baby with a heartbeat?

End of discussion for the Merchant of Death.

A person named Richard Hanania picked up the discussion where Ms. Psaki left off.

You cant screen for Down syndrome before about 10 weeks, and something like 80% of Down syndrome fetuses are aborted, Mr. Hanania wrote on the Twitter website, retreating to the well-worn euphemism fetus instead of human or baby.

If red states ban abortion, we could see a world where they have five times as many children with Down syndrome, and similar numbers for other disabilities.

Well, Mr. Hanania certainly makes a case for heartbeat abortions, but I dont think its the one he intends to make. Its more like that old question about whether if you had an opportunity to kill Hitler when he was a baby, would you?

To Mr. Hananias credit, at least he is more honest than Ms. Psaki and willing to engage her argument to its logical conclusion. He makes no pretenses that the abortion industry in America is about anything other than eugenics, which of course, was the whole basis for Planned Parenthood in the first place. And Hitlers political party as well.

Another good question for Ms. Psaki and the Fourth Reich: Does the president support the right of a woman to abort a baby who has a heartbeat but not reproductive organs? Or, how about aborting a baby with a heartbeat because she does have reproductive organs? Or does that right only extend to babies with disabilities, such as Down syndrome?

How about the right to abort a baby with a heartbeat who is suspected might turn out gay? Or born with gender dysphoria? You know, as Mr. Hanania explained, those abnormalities can give a place a bad reputation.

Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at the Washington Times.

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Read more here:
Merchants of Death - Washington Times

As America remembers the loss of life on 9/11, many have forgotten that the country responded with mass surveillance, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, religious discrimination, governmental policies of torture, and targeted drone killings.

The greatest infringement on civil liberties is Americans right to privacy, Dr. Wilmer Leon, author and syndicated columnist, told The Final Call. America has developed into a surveillance state, whether its through closed circuit television, whether it is through the monitoring of telephone conversations, or spying on Americans by the intelligence apparatus in this country. Its the Fourth Amendment that says people have the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, he said.

It is very, very serious. It is very detrimental. It is something that a lot of people dont pay attention to. People have no idea that this continues to happen.

Soon after 9/11 a scared Congress rushed through the Patriot Act.

It increases the governments surveillance powers in four areas:

Records searches. It expands the governments ability to look at records on an individuals activity being held by a third parties. (Section 215)

Secret searches. It expands the governments ability to search private property without notice to the owner. (Section 213)

Intelligence searches. It expands a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that had been created for the collection of foreign intelligence information (Section 218).

Trap and trace searches. It expands another Fourth Amendment exception for spying that collects addressing information about the origin and destination of communications, as opposed to the content (Section 214).

It gave unbeknown power to the government. When you look at the history, the motivations behind creating the country in the first place, in terms of breaking from England and uniting the 13 colonies into a country, it was because, according to the Declaration of Independence, the overreach by the king, said Dr. Leon.We have now been convinced through this trope of national security and terrorism that we have to relinquish our personal liberties in order for us to be safe. This phrase is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Those who will sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

Terry Albury is a perfect example of the Patriot Act gone very wrong. He was so disillusioned by what he was forced to do as an FBI agent in the so-called war on terror that he was willing to leak government documents to the press and go to jail when he was caught.

The reporter in his case was not named, however the dates in his plea agreement coincide with a series of articles published by The Intercept that detail how the FBI surveils both informants and suspected terrorists.

Day in and day out Mr. Albury confronted Muslims and terrorized them under the guise of surveillance. He would knock on their doors requesting to interview them and follow and harass them.

According to a sentencing memo filed by Mr. Alburys attorneys, This was an every-day encounter for Mr. Albury. He comported himself in this setting as a model FBI agent. But the conflict and depression generated by these routine but soul-destroying events took its toll.

When it got to be too much for Mr. Albury he sent at least 25 documents, 16 of which were classified according to court documents, to the press.

I did it because it got to a point where the reality of what I was a part of hit me in a way that just shattered my existence, he said. There is this mythology surrounding the war on terrorism, and the F.B.I., that has given agents the power to ruin the lives of completely innocent people based solely on what part of the world they came from, or what religion they practice, or the color of their skin. And I did that, he adds. I helped destroy people. For 17 years.

I apologize to everyone I have hurt as a result of my actions, especially my family, my co-workers in California and Minneapolis, and my colleagues in the law enforcement community, Mr. Albury wrote in a letter to the court. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison in 2018.

These documents confirmed what American communitiesprimarily Muslims and communities of colorand rights groups had long known or thought to be true, explained Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, to the media.

For years weve been hearing from people who were surveilled or investigated, or watch listed with no apparent basis for the F.B.I. to suspect wrongdoing but based primarily on their race or religion or political organizing and beliefs. And heres someone who was trying to do the right things from inside government and ended up either participating or being a witness or adjacent to a range of abuses that defined, and continue to define, the post-9/11 era. What are you supposed to do as a person of conscience when you see what your country is doing?

Twenty years after the first detainees arrived at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba, the United States is still holding 40 detainees, indefinitely, most without charge and none having received a fair trial.

After 9/11 happened, I was kidnapped from Mauritania to Jordan, from there to Afghanistan and from there to Guantanamo Bay where I was tortured, Mohamedou Ould Slahi told the virtual audience at the Rights or Rightlessness Event, January 11, to commemorate the 20thAnniversary of the first detainees arriving at Guantanamo Bay.

I stayed there for 15 years and was released in 2016. I was never convicted or charged with any crimes, he said. Muslim dictators rounded up so many young men just because of suspicion. I understand suspicion but I dont understand kidnap and torture. The U.S. twisted the arms of the leaders of so many countries, but we expected better from the U.S.

Amnesty International released a new report January 11, that highlighted historic and continuing human rights violations at theGuantnamoBay.

This is about more than just the 40 people still held at Guantnamoit is also about the crimes under international law committed over the past 19 years and the continuing lack of accountability for them. It is about the future, too, as we move towards the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and strive for enduring justice, said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights Program at Amnesty International USA.

The report documents a catalogue of human rights violations perpetrated against those detained at the camp, where victims of torture are held with inadequate medical care indefinitely and in the absence of fair trials. Transfers out of the facility have stalled, and even those cleared for release have remained incarcerated for years on end.

Religious persecution became a hallmark of the war on terror after 9/11. The war on terror became the war on Islam.

There was a heightened surveillance. The government started sending agents into masjids to see what they were up to. For the immigrant communities, the South Asians, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Muslims come from so many places they were not surveilled in the same way. I think that they were just coming into view as Muslims, Dr. Aminah Al Deen, chair of the Islamic Studies Department Emeritus at DePaul University, told The Final Call.

When African American women, especially, started trying to look like Arab American women who are Muslim, they came under the same kind of surveillance and it was a cyber surveillance, just seeing who went to which masjid. Who was coming in and out of their houses, which houses they were coming in and out of, she added.

We definitely were not protected. Youre talking about a huge community of people from over 87 countries. Some were here undocumented; they were more at risk and many of them were deported. It was an interesting phenomenon, for Bangladeshis and some South Asians, they didnt deport the wives and children, but they deported the men.

ElHajj Mauri Saalakhan is president of the Aafia Foundation. He told The Final Call, The list is long of cases of young and old but primarily young Muslims who were preemptively prosecuted by the fear of the American government.

Mohammed Hossain, a respected member of his community, was targeted in a fictional FBI sting in 2004. He was convicted of material support for terrorism in 2006 and sentenced to 15 years. He was subjected to preemptive prosecution, which is a law enforcement strategy to target and prosecute individuals or organizations whose beliefs, ideology or religious affiliations raise security concerns for the government. Just in case the targets might become terrorists, the government concocts a sting. He was finally released in 2020 and returned to his community.

In another case the Liberty City 7, poor men from a Black neighborhood in Miami, were arrested by the FBI in June 2006 on charges of attempting to wage war on America. Then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed they were plotting to blow up Chicagos Sears Tower, to launch a full ground war against the United States, and to support al-Qaida.

The men, members of an unknown religious group called the Seas of David, had no actual connection to al-Qaida, no weapons, no explosives, no reconnaissance on the Sears Tower, no consistent ideology of violence.

The little if any evidence against them was based on a dialogue encouraged by a paid informant in a grand scheme of make believe. Their story became the making of a film directed by Dan Reed.

These are all poor Black men, said Mr. Reed in an article published in The Guardian. Had they not been from that background, had they been well-off white kids, none of this wouldve happened probably, because the circumstances wouldve been totally different, the outlet reported.

In 2004, Abu Ghraib was the worst example of U.S. secret military torture facilities around the world. The administration of then-president George W. Bush justified torture as necessary during the war on terror. Abu Ghraib housed several thousand prisoners, including women, teenagers, civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints.

They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of crimes against the coalition; and a small number of suspected high-value leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces.

It would have continued until pictures of the degrading, dehumanizing actions by the soldiers leaked out and numerous charges were filed against the leadership and it was shut down.

The Middle East Times summed up what Arab papers around the world said about the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo situations; London based, Palestinian owned dailyAl Quds Al Arabion Abu Ghraib:

President Saddam never presented himself as a leader of the free Western world and messenger of democracy for the Arabs and Third World, like President George W. Bush who invaded and occupied Iraq, killed 100,000 of its people under the pretext of spreading the culture of human rights and democratic freedoms.

U.S. official justifications that these violations were carried out by a small number of soldiers was totally unacceptable because these troops represent the American government and because it doesnt need 150,000 troops to torture prisoners.

Since 9/11, Muslims in America have been the victims of FBI watching Muslims, arresting Muslims, breaking into Muslim homes. Muslims have suffered in the airports; being stopped because of their names. Searched once, searched twice; and sometimes even if they spoke Arabic, something would come up that might even deny them a flight, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan noted in a 2010 interview with Al-Jazeeras Abderrahim Foukara.

Since 9/11, the way the government has acted toward Muslims, many Islamic scholars who would come to the United States to lecture, have found it difficult. And some, even now, do not wish to come because of what they have to go through to enter the United States. So the climate is getting increasingly more difficult, the Minister stated.

Drone strikes used to target ISIS and other targets were used as late as August 27 in Kabul ahead of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades. The strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children of a family looking forward to evacuating to America. Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said that the U.S. was aware of reports of civilian casualties.

The governments increasing erosion of civil liberties over the past 20 years can be seen in many ways. Luci Murphy is a D.C. community activist. After 9/11people were so afraid about significant buildings being attacked that they closed the streets around the White House. We were used to being able to go to the White House to demonstrate, she told The Final Call.

Now there are barricades on Pennsylvania avenue, the White House side is closed to all vehicular traffic and sometimes to foot traffic. Lafayette park, which is close to the White House, across the street where a lot of people also demonstrate too is often fenced off and people are kicked out.

Its not just the barricades and lack of access to facilities that concerns Ms. Murphy.

We had a celebration for Leonard Peltier, who is a Native American and has been falsely convicted of killing some FBI agents. Even though theres evidence to show that he was not involved hes been incarcerated almost 50 years now. Our celebration, a few days before 9/11, was to raise money for his defense, she said.

Since then, the proprietor of the cafe where we held the fundraising cannot get a permit to carry a legal firearm because he offered his space to raise funds for Leonard Peltier. He was visited by the FBI. The proprietor of Brooklyns Cup of Dreams is a very law-abiding citizen but because of the support he gave to one of our political prisoners cannot get a firearm.

Retired U.S. Marshal Matthew Fogg sees a contradiction in the way America has handled the whole war on terror that has led to a massive erosion in civil liberties. We promote terrorism on our soil and through our citizens, when we talk about racism. African Americans right up until today continue to face racism. We go to other countries and fight terrorist activity on their fronts while in America we have terrorists when we talk about hate crimes, race crimes and hatred that weve been dealing with for years, he said.

When it comes down to fairness, equality, were finding a lot of those things changing. What are your civil liberties? What are your rights? Its always that question that comes down to somebody has to make a determination on it. That person does not look like you. That person in Congress or the Senate tends to be White. They dont have to deal with the same issues. They dont see it as a problem where we, people of color, live it and understand it.

The rest is here:
Loss of freedom and an erosion of civil liberties - FinalCall.com News

A man charged with attempted murder after firing at Minneapolis police officers in the chaotic protests that followed George Floyds death has been acquitted of all charges against him

By AMY FORLITI Associated Press

September 3, 2021, 9:02 PM

4 min read

MINNEAPOLIS -- A man charged with attempted murder after firing at Minneapolis police officers in the chaotic protests that followed George Floyds death has been acquitted of all charges against him.

Jaleel Stallings argued self-defense during his July trial, testifying that he fired at the unmarked white van after he was struck in the chest with what turned out to be a nonlethal rubber bullet fired by police.

Stallings, 29, testified that he thought he was being attacked by civilians, had been struck by a bullet and was potentially bleeding out, his attorney, Eric Rice, told The Associated Press on Friday. Court documents show that after Stallings was hit, he fired three shots toward the van as a warning, then took cover. He surrendered when he realized he had fired at police. No officers were hit.

Stallings case drew new attention this week when an online digital news outlet, Minnesota Reformer, reported on his acquittal and examined the case in depth. The Reformer published body camera footage of his arrest that shows Minneapolis SWAT officers punching and kicking Stallings as he lay on the ground.

A booking photo of Stallings taken after his arrest shows visible facial injuries. Rice said Stallings testified he had a suspected eye socket fracture, bruising and cuts. Court documents say he also had labored breathing after the arrest, which Rice said was likely due to the impact of the rubber bullet to his chest.

Rice said hes not aware of any pending investigation or discipline for the officers, but requested such information if it existed and believes it should have been disclosed as part of trial discovery.

When asked if the officers were being investigated or disciplined for use of force, Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said he cant release any information because the matter is under internal review.

Stallings is now seeking the courts permission to allow him to release body camera footage that became public evidence during trial, after a prior order in the case restricted dissemination of videos. A hearing on that issue is scheduled for later this month.

Stallings May 30, 2020, arrest made headlines during a time of unrest in Minneapolis, which included the burning of a police station, in the days after Floyds death. He was charged with two counts of second-degree attempted murder, multiple counts of assault and other charges. His case got added attention when the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a local nonprofit group, paid $75,000 in cash to get him released on bail.

According to court documents in his case, when Stallings realized he had fired at police officers, he immediately put his gun on the ground and lay face down, with his hands on the ground. A pretrial order from Judge William Koch said Stallings was motionless for 20 seconds and posed no obvious threat before Officer Justin Stetson and Sgt. Andrew Bittell approached him. The order says Stetson began kicking and punching Stallings in the head and neck, and Bittell began kneeing and punching him in the stomach, chest and back.

The judge found that Stetson and Bittell violated Stallings' Fourth Amendment rights during the arrest and that their actions were objectively unreasonable.

Officer Stetson and Sergeant Bittell allowed their anger and/or fear to overtake their faculties and they beat Mr. Stallings for nearly 30 seconds before attempting to place him in handcuffs, Koch wrote. The video evidence does not support their testimony Mr. Stallings was resisting arrest in any way, instead he surrendered to their authority.

The new attention on the case comes just months before Minneapolis voters will be asked to weigh in on a ballot question that would eliminate the police department and replace it with a new Department of Public Safety that would use a more comprehensive public health approach.

Originally posted here:
Man who shot at cops in unrest over Floyd death is acquitted - ABC News

from the can't-make-crime-fighting-omelettes-without-breaking-a-few-Constitutional-eg dept

How much does it take to establish reasonable suspicion needed to subject a person to an at least temporary removal of most of their rights? Not much, says the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court, which appears willing to keep poking the SCOTUS bear with its mind-boggling interpretations of Constitutional rights and the power of law enforcement to bypass them.

This recent decision, highlighted by defense lawyer/"Constitutional cultist" Andrew Fleischman, says all cops need are a few seconds of observation and some vague assertions about criminal activity in the general area.

Here's the setup, as presented by the Fifth Circuit [PDF]:

Otha Ray Flowers, convicted of a federal gun violation, appeals the denial of his motion to suppress evidence as a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The questions on appeal are whether Flowers and Jeremy Mayo were seized when five or six patrol cars parked behind and around Mayos Cadillac with their patrol lights flashing, and if they were seized, whether Officer Stanton had reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop.

Some cops were doing some cop stuff in the area. According to the facts on record, the officers were "looking for suspicious behavior," a supposedly "proactive" effort in an allegedly high-crime area that is meant to deter criminal acts by, apparently, rolling up en masse on anyone viewed as suspicious by these Direct Action Response Team (yes, that spells DART) officers.

Flowers and Mayo were sitting in the parking lot of a convenience store. The officers were in the area because their supervisor had directed them to patrol near there because of "recent violent crimes and burglaries." This sounds suspiciously like "predictive policing," which sends cops to where crimes have been committed under the assumption that lightning strikes twice/people are less white. The Jackson, Mississippi panopticon works, I guess. But only on the assumption that people living, working, or temporarily idling a vehicle in a high-crime area have fewer rights than those fortunate enough to be elsewhere.

So, what were these two "suspects" doing that raised enough suspicion a stop involving five police cars and six officers was warranted? Failing to do anything other than sit in a car for less time than it takes to read the previous two paragraphs:

As Officer Stanton was turning from Capitol Street onto Road of Remembrance, he saw a silver Cadillac parked in the south end of a small parking lot connected to an open convenience store. It was dark outside, but Officer Stanton observed that the vehicle was occupied by two men, one in the drivers seat and one in the passengers seat. Officer Stanton observed the vehicle for approximately 10 to 15 seconds and noticed the occupants didnt appear to be exiting the vehicle, [and] didnt appear to be patronizing the establishment. Therefore, he decided to conduct what he characterized as a field interview.

Apparently, even non-movements can be furtive. The response to this momentarily-observed lack of activity was a literal swarm of police officers.

Officer Stanton testified that at this point, he and five to six other officers, all in separate patrol cars, converged upon the silver vehicle with their blue lights activated. The parking lot in front of the store was narrow, with very little space or room to maneuver. Officer Stanton later acknowledged that it would have been impossible for the silver vehicle to leave the parking lot because of the way the officers parked their cars around it.

Behold the majestic absurdity of the following assertion:

Officer Stanton got out of his patrol car and approached the silver vehicle, as did other officers. He testified that the men in the vehicle were still free to leave at this point in the encounter, but he did not communicate that to them.

Who amongst us with five or six police cars surrounding our car would feel "free to leave," whether or not that option was communicated to us by one of the six surrounding the car? No one. Not a goddamn person would feel this encounter was still voluntary.

At least the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court said it was a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Pretending it was still consensual was a step too far for even this notoriously law enforcement-friendly circuit. But the very least a court should do when presented with this kind of assertion is to apprise officers that literally no one -- not even the officer making this sworn statement -- actually believes this kind of "interaction" is consensual.

The end result was the discovery of some marijuana, a gun, and an outstanding warrant. This led to felony charges. And the Fifth Circuit is fine with this outcome because, hey, don't sit in a car in a high crime area, I guess.

It bears repeating that apart from the presence of a number of police cars, the tenor of Officer Stantons encounter with Flowers was entirely benign until Stanton smelled marijuana. He conducted no physical frisk of Flowerss person but simply approached the Cadillac to ask some questions. If this course of conduct is constitutionally impermissible, then it is difficult to see how any active policing can take place in communities endangered and impoverished by high crime rates.

That's the takeaway from this decision. Cops can wander over Constitutional lines as long as a court is willing to grant their "high crime area" assertions credibility. There's no legal definition of "high crime," so it can be whatever cops want it to be. And when they assert this in front of judges prone to grant every benefit of a doubt to fellow government employees, it will work nearly every time.

Flow our proxy tears, the court advocating on behalf of the policeman said:

Officers in such areas may well require safety in numbers, while the law-abiding citizens desperately need protection that will be denied if law enforcement officials believe that incriminating evidence will be suppressed or they will be sued for alleged violations of rights.

If the cops can't roll over rights to fight crime, how can they possibly fight crime? That's the question the Fifth Circuit is asking. And it should have an answer that says cops can't disregard rights just because they're patrolling areas where criminal activity is claimed to be "higher" than theoretical areas where it's apparently lower. But instead, the Appeals Court gives us this:

Under the circumstances of this case and viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the Government, assuming arguendo that these individuals were seized, there was reasonable suspicion to do so. We AFFIRM.

And that is that. The court has basically written a permission slip for stops based on nothing more than a few seconds of observation backed by officers' assertions that criminal activity has occurred nearby at some point in the past. Looking past the legalese, the Appeals Court is telling people their rights mean less if they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the "wrong time" being a few seconds of non-movement while observed by officers trained to view literally anything as suspicious.

If there's any saving grace to this published decision, it's the dissent, which casts a whole lot of shade on the majority's conclusions while taking a shot at the overreacting cops.

As for the dawdling of approximately ten to fifteen seconds, the men could have been finishing a conversation, responding to text messages, watching with curiosity as a six-car police caravan passed, or engaging in other reasonable behavior that explains the delay. The facts in this case simply do not support an officers reasonable suspicion.

That should have been the majority's conclusion. Instead, it chose once again to elevate police officers over the policed, and ensured the poorest of the police can be treated the worst without officers feeling they might be held accountable in a court of law for the rights violations they've committed.

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Filed Under: 4th amendment, 5th circuit, high crime areas, jeremy mayo, otha ray flowers, police, predictive policing, searches, suspicion

See original here:
Ten Seconds Of Doing Nothing Is Reasonably Suspicious, Says The Fifth Circuit Appeals Court - Techdirt

EPA plans to propose the nations strongest rules against methane emissions this month, escalating the Biden administrations use of regulatory tools to reduce greenhouse gases from fossil fuel companies.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan confirmed last week that his agency will meet President Bidens September deadline to propose methane regulations for the oil and gas sector, as laid out in one of the presidents first executive orders.

The upcoming rules for new and existing oil and gas infrastructure are expected to be stricter even than an Obama-era standard set in 2016, which was reinstated in June after Congress took the unusual step of invalidating a Trump EPA rollback and replacement rule.

Environmentalists at the time applauded lawmakers use of a Congressional Review Act resolution, which garnered some bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, to cancel former President Trumps effort to weaken methane requirements. Now theyre pressing EPA to surpass the Obama rule, saying technological advancements over the last five years have made greater reductions cost-effective.

And existing infrastructure has yet to be regulated, even though it releases the overwhelming majority of the sectors methane.

EPA seems poised to deliver.

Regan said during an event last week hosted by Resources for the Future that methane reduction has never been done as aggressively as we plan to do it.

Tomas Carbonell, a former lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund, is overseeing the rulemaking process as deputy assistant administrator for stationary sources in EPAs air office. As of yesterday, the rule had not been sent to the White House for review.

Methane is an important piece of the global warming puzzle, particularly in the near term.

Its the second-most plentiful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere after carbon dioxide. And its responsible for 30% of current warming, according to an April report from the United Nations climate science body.

Because it is 86 times more climate-forcing than CO2 over a 20-year time frame, experts say that cutting methane in the short term will buy the world valuable time to make the structural economic changes needed to avoid the worst climate impacts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report made this clear: Methane reduction is the biggest and really the only strategy to rein in warming over the next 20 years, said Sarah Smith, program director for superpollutants at the Clean Air Task Force. And the next 20 years are critical when it comes to avoiding climate tipping points and feedbacks and irreversible changes to the planet.

In the U.S., the oil and gas sector contributes an estimated 35% of U.S. methane emissions, making it a prime target for more stringent regulations covering a broader swath of the industry.

The EPA methane proposals will also arm the Biden administration with an important early achievement ahead of U.N. climate talks scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland. Biden has pledged to cut U.S. emissions in half from 2005 levels by the end of this decade, but the world is still waiting for details about how those reductions will be achieved.

The methane package will provide a down payment.

The timing is probably not a coincidence, said Rosalie Winn, climate and clean air attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund. With the release of the oil and gas next-generation methane standards, I think the international community will be looking for a strong signal with these rules that the Biden administration is taking steps towards meeting the commitments that it laid out last spring.

The Obama methane rule covers infrastructure across the oil and gas supply chain including production, processing, transmission and storage at facilities built in 2015 and later. Earlier sources are not covered, though the Obama EPA started the process of exploring options for an existing source rule in 2016.

That process came to an abrupt halt when Trump took office in January 2017. His administration spent four years working to scuttle the Obama-era rule in ways it hoped would also erect future barriers to regulating methane from existing sources, which are more plentiful and would carry more compliance costs.

In 2018, EPA proposed a relaxation of its requirement that oil and gas developers inspect new wells for leakage semiannually. Instead, it introduced an annual inspection requirement for most facilities.

Then, in a subsequent 2019 proposal, it argued that the Obama EPA hadnt laid the legal groundwork for regulating methane from the petroleum sector. That replacement rule targeted volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, instead of methane.

In doing so, EPA narrowed the universe of new oil and gas sources that would be regulated, effectively creating an exemption for transmission and storage facilities because they have less associated VOCs. It was also an attempt by EPA to dismantle the legal basis for regulation of existing sources. Because existing oil and gas infrastructure isnt a significant contributor of VOCs, the Trump EPA argued that no existing source rule would ever be needed.

The June CRA motion, which reinstated the Obama rule for new oil and gas infrastructure, also upended the Trump EPAs attempt at heading off a methane rule for older infrastructure. And it gave Bidens EPA a blank slate to come up with two new rules for both, with two proposals expected this month and final rules as soon as next year.

EPA held public listening sessions on methane regulation in June, followed in late August by hearings on technical innovations in methane reduction, which could support stricter rules.

Environmental advocates who spent the last four years battling Trump administration attempts to roll back methane protections say the Biden administration can deliver even deeper reductions by borrowing measures pioneered in leading states like Colorado.

The 2016 standards were always intended to be a starting point for addressing methane pollution from the oil and gas sector, said Winn. EPA needs to go well beyond that to realize the level of emissions reduction that are necessary in this climate moment and for the Biden administrations broader climate goals and international commitments.

Smith from Clean Air Task Force said the U.S. petroleum sector could cut methane 65% by the middle of this decade by introducing new requirements including monthly, rather than semiannual, inspections.

A plan by the Clean Air Task Force also called for the use of zero-emissions pneumatic controllers to regulate pressure during production, making sure that abandoned wells are plugged to prevent leakage, and major reductions in the use of flaring to burn off excess gas at the wellhead.

Flaring weve long known is a wasteful practice that releases CO2 and hazardous air pollution, said Smith. But what were learning more and more is that its also a major methane source.

Thats because flares can become unlit and release unabated natural gas into the atmosphere. Colorado has already cracked down on routine flaring, as would a proposed rule for New Mexico.

These proposals come as the industry is slowly shifting its position on methane regulation, though it hasnt been uniform and major trade groups have been slower to evolve than some of their members.

Companies like BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp. challenged the Trump administrations moves to dismantle the Obama rules, which they said had created a level playing field for U.S. operators. At the same time, the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America cheered the weaker regulations.

But as Biden prepared to take office this year, API signaled more openness to such regulations which it said industry should help shape.

In a blog post a week before Bidens inauguration, API CEO Mike Sommers described federal methane regulation, which it had previously opposed, as key to public confidence in our industrys performance as we engage with the new administration.

Testifying in June at an EPA listening session, API Senior Vice President for Regulation Frank Macchiarola said the trade group was focused on working with the Biden administration in support of the direct regulation of methane for new and existing sources.

As EPA puts the finishing touches on its proposals, Democrats in the Senate are mulling the introduction of a methane fee as part of a budget reconciliation package that could apply to many of the same emissions sources across the oil and gas industry.

Brian Prest, a fellow at Resources for the Future, has studied how such a policy would impact leakage rates on the one hand and natural gas prices on the other. He said a high fee might incentivize industry to find reductions that EPA rules might miss.

Regulations might get you part of the way to what a methane fee might achieve, but a methane fee might go further to the extent that its higher, he said.

API has come out against the Democrats methane proposal.

In a letter yesterday to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over legislation that could be wrapped into the larger reconciliation bill, API and industry allies warned of adverse environmental and economic impacts and pointed out that methane emissions are already being mitigated via appropriate regulatory programs.

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Methane rule to eclipse past regulations, including Obama's - E&E News