AUSTIN — The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to clear the air by cutting methane emissions, but the petroleum industry says it’s already doing its part to curb the greenhouse gas. 

“Even as oil and natural gas production has surged, methane emissions from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells have fallen nearly 79 percent since 2005, and CO2 emissions are down to 27-year lows,” said Jack Gerard, American Petroleum Institute president and CEO, in a statement. “This is due to industry leadership and significant investments in new technologies.”

Proposals to cut emissions from oil and gas wells and transmission “could undermine America’s competitiveness” and cost consumers, according to the API statement.

But the Environmental Defense Fund charged the oil-and-gas industry with misrepresentation.

“The assertion that emissions are going down is flat wrong,” the EDF’s Mark Brownstein said in a statement. “EPA’s latest inventory released in April reports that in 2013 the oil and gas industry released more than 7.3 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere from their operations — a 3 percent increase over 2012 — making it the largest industrial source of methane pollution.”

Natural gas’ main component is methane.

In January, the Obama administration announced that it wants to cut methane emissions from the oil-and-gas sector by 40-45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025.

The White House called the proposals “common sense.”

“[E]missions from the oil and gas sector are projected to rise more than 25 percent by 2025 without additional steps to lower them,” according to a White House statement. “For these reasons, a strategy for cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is an important component of efforts to address climate change.

Methane global warming potential is more that 25 times greater than carbon dioxide’s, according to an EPA statement. 

It is the second-most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the United States from human activities, according to the agency, with nearly 30 percent of those emissions coming from oil production and the production, transmission and distribution of natural gas. 

The federal studies, however, may not show methane’s full impact.

Gathering and collecting facilities give off about 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas nationwide each year, according to a report published this month in Environmental Science & Technology.

That’s about eight times the EPA’s previous estimates, and represents about $300 million, with a climate impact of 37 coal-fired power plants over a 20-year period, Brownstein wrote.

Among the steps in the EPA proposals to cut harmful emissions: 

• Capturing gas after hydraulically fracturing oil wells, instead of dumping the gas in the air.  

• Periodically checking sites for leaks and fixing them.

• Applying emissions reduction technologies — already mandated for upstream production sites — to natural gas transmission facilities downstream.

Methane — a precursor to ozone — clearly affects Texas’ air quality. 

Two Texas metro areas made the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” 2015 report of 25 American cities most polluted by ozone.

Houston/The Woodlands was No. 6; Dallas/Fort Worth was No. 7.

Of the 19 Texas counties monitored in D/FW, eight received an ozone-pollution grade of F.

They were Tarrant, Parker, Johnson, Denton, Dallas, Collin, Ellis and Hood counties in Texas.

With the grade comes a notice: “If you live in [the county,] the air your breathe may put your health at risk.”  

The EPA is taking comments on the proposals. 

John Austin covers the Texas state house for CNHI. Contact him at jaustin@cnhi.com.