[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




 
                       DETECTING AND QUANTIFYING
                           METHANE EMISSIONS
                      FROM THE OIL AND GAS SECTOR

=======================================================================

                                     
                                     
                                     

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              JUNE 8, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-60

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
 
 
 
 
 
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       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
       
       
       
       
                          ______                       


             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
47-691 PDF            WASHINGTON : 2022 
 
 
 
 
       

              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                MIKE CAREY, OHIO
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas


                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              June 8, 2022

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................     8
    Written Statement............................................     8

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................     9
    Written Statement............................................    11

Written statement by Representative Haley Stevens, Presiding 
  Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee 
  on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    12

                               Witnesses:

Dr. David Lyon, Senior Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund
    Oral Statement...............................................    13
    Written Statement............................................    16

Mr. Riley Duren, Chief Executive Officer, Carbon Mapper
    Oral Statement...............................................    26
    Written Statement............................................    28

Dr. Brian Anderson, Director, National Energy Technology 
  Laboratory
    Oral Statement...............................................    44
    Written Statement............................................    46

Dr. Greg Rieker, Co-Founder and CTO, LongPath Technologies, Inc.
    Oral Statement...............................................    52
    Written Statement............................................    54

Discussion.......................................................    63

             Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Mr. Riley Duren, Chief Executive Officer, Carbon Mapper..........   100

Dr. Brian Anderson, Director, National Energy Technology 
  Laboratory.....................................................   106

Dr. Greg Rieker, Co-Founder and CTO, LongPath Technologies, Inc..   107

            Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

Report submitted by Representative Haley Stevens, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    ``Seeing CH4 Clearly: Science-Based Approaches to Methane 
      Monitoring in the Oil and Gas Sector,'' Majority Staff.....   114

Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    ``Detecting and Quantifying Methane Emissions from the Oil 
      and Gas Sector,'' Stephane Germain, CEO, GHGSat............   175

Letter submitted by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives
    Anne Bradbury, CEO, American Exploration and Production 
      Council....................................................   177

Letter submitted by Representative Don Beyer, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    ``To the Honorable Michael S. Regan, Administrator, 
      Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),'' Representative Don 
      Beyer, et al...............................................   183


                   DETECTING AND QUANTIFYING METHANE

                 EMISSIONS FROM THE OIL AND GAS SECTOR

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2022

                          House of Representatives,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in 
room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eddie Bernice 
Johnson [Chairwoman of the Committee] presiding.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Chairwoman Johnson. Let me say good morning and thanks to 
everyone for joining us today to discuss a topic with enormous 
implications for the future of our planet. We are here to 
consider methane leaks, the oil--from the oil and gas sector. 
Specifically, we're going to talk about the science of methane 
leaks and how that science can be applied to characterize oil 
and gas methane emissions on a large scale and inform 
mitigation efforts.
    The importance of doing so cannot be overstated. Methane is 
a powerful greenhouse gas. Reducing atmospheric methane levels 
is an important way to slow the rate of climate change in the 
short term but buy ourselves more time to implement long-term 
climate policies.
    There is broad agreement among scientists that reducing 
methane emissions from oil and gas operations is the simplest, 
most cost-effective, and most technically feasible methane 
emissions reduction option at this time. Oil and gas sector 
emissions are the low-hanging fruit of methane mitigation. We 
can take action today to solve the problem.
    Unfortunately, the oil and gas sector has a long way to go 
to rein in methane leaks. An investigation conducted by the 
Democratic staff of the Committee has concluded that oil and 
gas companies are not taking the actions that are needed to 
achieve large-scale reductions. The staff investigation found 
that the companies are failing to address super-emitting 
methane leaks, neglecting the use of methane quantification 
data, and deploying innovative methane detection technologies 
too slowly and too inconsistently.
    In America--if America is to reach the methane reduction 
targets and live up to the climate promises such as Global 
Methane Pledge, oil and gas sector methane mitigation must be 
informed by science. The oil and gas sector must do a better 
job of adopting science-based approaches to solve the methane 
leak problem.
    Science lies at the heart of everything this Committee 
does, and today will be no exception. Our witness panel 
features some of the country's leading experts on methane 
emissions from oil and gas sector, and I am grateful for their 
participation. They can help us understand the threat posed by 
methane leaks and how to effectively confront them, where our 
knowledge gaps are, and the potential for innovative 
technologies to be a part of the solution.
    We must also consider how the government's scientific 
enterprise, the Federal scientific enterprise can play a more 
active role in improving our understanding and strengthening 
our capabilities for dealing with methane leaks. Research 
programs across the Federal Government have the potential to 
engage constructively with industry and with the scientific 
community. Together, we can advance knowledge and develop tools 
for oil and gas sector methane emissions. Today, we will 
explore where Federal research investments are most needed.
    There are many dimensions to the issue of oil and gas 
sector methane leaks. If we listen to science and if we allow 
ourselves to be guided by it, we will equip ourselves with 
everything we need to make informed decisions. I look forward 
to a vigorous discussion.
    [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Thank you to everyone for joining us today to discuss a 
topic with enormous implications for the future of our planet.
    We are here to consider methane leaks from the oil and gas 
sector. Specifically, we are going to talk about the science of 
methane leaks, and how that science can be applied to 
characterize oil and gas methane emissions on a large scale and 
inform mitigation efforts.
    The importance of doing so cannot be overstated. Methane is 
a powerful greenhouse gas. Reducing atmospheric methane levels 
is an important way to slow the rate of climate change in the 
short-term and buy ourselves more time to implement long-term 
climate policies.
    There is broad agreement among scientists that reducing 
methane emissions from oil and gas operations is the simplest, 
most cost-effective, and most technically feasible methane 
emissions reduction option at this time. Oil and gas sector 
emissions are the low-hanging fruit of methane mitigation. We 
can take action today to solve this problem.
    Unfortunately, the oil and gas sector has a long way to go 
to rein in methane leaks. An investigation conducted by the 
Democratic staff of the Committee has concluded that oil and 
gas companies are not taking the actions that are needed to 
achieve large-scale methane reductions. The staff investigation 
found that the companies are failing to address super-emitting 
methane leaks, neglecting the use of methane quantification 
data, and deploying innovative methane detection technologies 
too slowly and too inconsistently.
    If America is to reach its methane reduction targets and 
live up to its climate promises such as the Global Methane 
Pledge, oil and gas sector methane mitigation must be informed 
by science. The oil and gas sector must do a better job of 
adopting science-based approaches to solve its methane leak 
problem.
    Science lies at the heart of everything this Committee 
does, and today will be no exception. Our witness panel 
features some of the country's leading experts on methane 
emissions from the oil and gas sector, and I am grateful for 
their participation. They can help us understand the threat 
posed by methane leaks, how to effectively confront them, where 
our knowledge gaps are, and the potential for innovative 
technologies to be a part of the solution.
    We must also consider how the Federal scientific enterprise 
can play a more active role in improving our understanding and 
strengthening our capabilities for dealing with methane leaks. 
Research programs across the Federal government have the 
potential to engage constructively with industry and with the 
scientific community. Together they can advance knowledge and 
develop tools for oil and gas sector methane emissions. Today 
we will explore where Federal research investments are most 
needed.
    There are many dimensions to the issue of oil and gas 
sector methane leaks. If we listen to the science, and if we 
allow ourselves to be guided by it, we will equip ourselves 
with everything we need to make informed decisions. I look 
forward to a vigorous discussion.
    I now yield to Ranking Member Lucas.

    Chairwoman Johnson. And now, I yield to Ranking Member 
Lucas.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson.
    And we're here today to discuss methane emissions and how 
to measure and address them. This is a complex problem, largely 
due to technological limitations and regulatory barriers. 
Compared to our ability to quantify carbon dioxide emissions, 
we lack knowledge and tools to measure methane in an accurate, 
timely, and cost-effective way. That in turn makes it hard to 
address sources of emissions.
    But that's starting to change, and we are beginning to 
recognize methane is what I would call a low-hanging fruit. 
It's a short-lived climate pollutant, so as we work to remove 
the emission of carbon from critical industries, the ability to 
identify and plug methane leaks is a quick and effective way to 
slow the rising global temperature.
    The good news is that our energy industry has already made 
significant progress to reduce emissions in oil and gas 
operations. To give you an idea of their success to this date, 
methane emissions in the United States have decreased by 17 
percent since 1990. That's all the more impressive given that 
during the same time period, U.S. natural gas marketed 
production has increased by 99 percent.
    We're producing more energy with fewer emissions. Much like 
our reductions in carbon dioxide, innovation has and will 
continue to be the better driver of action than regulations or 
prohibitions. Simply put, we don't need to tax or ban methane 
in any way. We simply need to cut red tape and allow the 
energy, agricultural, and waste industries to use the 
breakthrough technologies being developed and refined every 
day.
    And that leads us to a major roadblock when it comes to 
methane research and development (R&D): regulatory burdens. For 
far too long, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulations 
have stood squarely in the way of technology deployment. As it 
stands right now, any operator that wants to use a technology 
other than a handheld optical gas imaging sensor must complete 
and submit an application for alternative means of emission 
limitation (AMEL). But a massive problem arises when you ask 
how many AMEL applications have been approved for methane 
monitoring technologies. The answer is zero. None. In fact, 
it's such a tedious process, only one applicant has ever--
application has ever been submitted. And if you are lucky 
enough to be the first to use this coveted approval, it doesn't 
make you--make your future prospects any easier. If granted 
approval to use a new methane monitoring in the Permian Basin, 
an operator would have to reapply and go through the entire 
process again to use that exact same technology at a different 
site, even if it may be just down the road. This, my friends, 
is the very definition of bureaucratic ignorance.
    Energy prices are at regular--record, yeah, record highs. 
Now is not the time for more virtue-signaling regulations. We 
need to support cleaner American energy by empowering industry 
and encouraging innovative technologies. And yet, President 
Biden and the EPA recently proposed a new methane rule that 
creates additional unnecessary government mandates and fails to 
streamline the process for private companies to deploy 
innovative technologies. This is--heavy-handed, regulatory 
approach will be even more of a burden on domestic producers. 
And all the while, these policies are doing nothing to 
alleviate sky-high energy prices, even as the price of natural 
gas is projected to increase by 30 percent for the average 
household this winter.
    Despite my frustration with the Administration's failure to 
address energy prices and flawed approach to emission 
reductions, there is still reason to be optimistic. One of them 
is with us today, Dr. Greg Rieker and LongPath Technologies. 
While working at NIST, Dr. Rieker completed the proof-of-
concept research that takes Noble Prize-winning laser 
technology and applies it to a long-term, scalable emissions 
control. LongPath has since gone on to receive two different 
ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency--Energy) awards from 
the Department of Energy (DOE). LongPath's work has been blind-
tested, verified, and commercialized. It's a very real success 
story of utilizing the proper channels of Federal resources and 
then letting the market determine the fate. I look forward to 
hearing from Dr. Rieker about LongPath's story, technology 
applications, and how we can better enable more successes like 
this in the future.
    But before I close, I'd like to note--and I always offer my 
notes in a very respectful fashion--that for the record, the 
staff report under consideration--discussion today, I should 
say, wasn't made available to the minority until 24 hours ago. 
Now, I understand the majority controls the proceedings here, 
and they had the prerogative to conduct business as they wish, 
but on issues of this importance, I'm disappointed to see that 
we're not acting in the collegial spirit that Chairwoman 
Johnson and I have worked so hard to establish. I suggest to 
everyone that if we want to make a difference and address 
important issues like the one before us, this isn't the right 
way to go about it.
    With that, I yield back, Madam Chair.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson.
    We're here today to discuss methane emissions and how to 
measure and address them. This is a complex problem, largely 
due to technological limitations and regulatory barriers.
    Compared to our ability to quantify carbon dioxide 
emissions, we lack knowledge and tools to measure methane in an 
accurate, timely, and cost-effective way. That in turn makes it 
hard to address sources of emissions.
    But that is starting to change, and we are beginning to 
recognize methane is what I call a low-hanging fruit.
    It's a short-lived climate pollutant, so as we work to 
remove the emission of carbon from crucial industries, the 
ability to identify and plug methane leaks is a quick and 
effective way to slow the rising global temperature.
    The good news is that our energy industry has already made 
significant progress to reduce emissions in oil and gas 
operations. To give you an idea of their success to date, 
methane emissions in the United States have decreased by 17 
percent since 1990. That's all the more impressive given that 
during that same time period, U.S. Natural Gas Marketed 
Production has increased by 99 percent.
    We're producing more energy with fewer emissions. Much like 
our reductions in carbon dioxide, innovation has and will 
continue to be the better driver of action than regulations and 
prohibitions.
    Simply put: we don't need to tax or ban methane in any way. 
We simply need to cut red tape and allow the energy, 
agriculture, and waste industries to use the breakthrough 
technologies being developed and refined every day.
    And that leads us to a major roadblock when it comes to 
methane research and development: regulatory burdens. For far 
too long, EPA regulations have stood squarely in the way of 
technology deployment.
    As it stands right now, any operator that wants to use a 
technology other than a handheld Optical Gas Imaging sensor 
must complete and submit an application for Alternative Means 
of Emission Limitation (AMEL).
    But a massive problem arises when you ask how many AMEL 
applications have been approved for menthane monitoring 
technologies. The answer is zero. None.
    In fact, it's such a tedious process, only one application 
has ever been submitted.
    And if you are lucky enough to be the first to get this 
coveted approval, it doesn't make your future prospects any 
easier. If granted approval to use a new methane monitoring in 
the Permian Basin, an operator would have to reapply and go 
through the entire process again to use that exact same 
technology at a different site, even if it was just down the 
road.
    This, my friends, is the very definition of bureaucratic 
ignorance.
    Energy prices are at record highs. Now is not the time for 
more virtue-signaling regulations. We need to support cleaner 
American energy by empowering industry and encouraging 
innovative technologies.
    And yet, President Biden and the EPA recently proposed a 
new methane rule that creates additional unnecessary government 
mandates and fails to streamline the process for private 
companies to deploy innovative technologies.
    This heavy-handed, regulatory approach will be even more of 
a burden on domestic producers. All the while, these policies 
are doing nothing to alleviate sky-high energy prices, even as 
the price of natural gas is projected to increase by 30% for 
the average household this winter.
    Despite my frustration with this Administration's failure 
to address energy prices and flawed approach to emissions 
reductions, there is still reason to be optimistic. One of them 
is with us today, Dr. Greg Rieker and LongPath Technologies.
    While working at NIST, Dr. Rieker completed the proof-of-
concept research that takes Noble Prize-winning laser 
technology and applies it to a long-term, scalable emissions 
control.
    LongPath has since gone on to receive two different ARPA-E 
awards from the Department of Energy. LongPath's work has been 
blind-tested, verified, and commercialized. It is a very real 
success story of utilizing the proper channels of federal 
resources and then letting the market determine its fate.
    I look forward to hearing more from Dr. Rieker about 
LongPath's story, technology applications, and how we can 
better enable more successes like this in the future.
    Thank you Madam Chair and I yield back the balance of my 
time.

    Ms. Stevens [presiding]. I am submitting testimony for the 
record, and I'm attaching the Democratic staff report to the 
opening statement.
    [The prepared statement of Presiding Chairwoman Stevens 
follows:]

    Climate change is a profound threat to our communities, our 
economy, and our way of life. We are already experiencing the 
impacts of climate change in my district, and without concerted 
action these impacts will surely intensify in the decades to 
come. America must do everything it can, as quickly as 
possible, to slow the pace of climate change. Only by acting 
decisively and acting now can we avoid the most severe climate 
impacts and ensure a safe and prosperous future for ourselves 
and the future generations to come.
    Oil and gas sector methane emissions offer a unique 
opportunity to translate short-term action into long-term 
impact. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. But due to its 
relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere, reductions in 
anthropogenic methane emissions can very quickly slow the rate 
of atmospheric warming and provide more time for broader carbon 
reduction policies to take effect. The energy sector is one of 
the largest sources of human-caused methane emissions in the 
United States, and oil and gas operations represent the bulk of 
energy-related methane emissions. Thus, oil and gas sector 
methane emission reductions should be a cornerstone of 
America's strategy to cut methane quickly and effectively.
    Cost effective and technologically feasible methane 
detection and mitigation tools for oil and gas operations are 
already available today. They should be deployed widely, and 
they should be deployed in a manner that maximizes their impact 
on methane emissions. The fact that atmospheric methane levels 
continue to rise rapidly, with 2021 featuring the highest 
annual increase in methane ever recorded, suggests that the oil 
and gas sector must do more to reduce methane leaks from its 
operations.
    It is also important to develop a better understanding of 
oil and gas methane emissions. The scientific community 
believes that the sector's methane emissions could be 
significantly larger than previously known. Accurate, 
comprehensive data about oil and gas methane sources would 
strengthen the ability of both the industry and the Federal 
government to respond in an informed manner. If the tools exist 
to gather this data, we should support the implementation of 
those tools to the greatest extent possible.
    Our hearing today will allow us to engage with these 
issues. I am excited to hear the perspectives of our 
distinguished panel of witnesses, who have all made impressive 
scientific contributions to the arena of methane emissions from 
the oil and gas sector. I expect they can help to inform the 
Committee's deliberations regarding the role that Federal 
research and development programs can play in addressing data 
gaps and supporting innovative technologies to detect, 
quantify, and mitigate methane emissions from oil and gas 
operations. I am also interested to discuss the findings of the 
report written by the Majority Staff of the Committee regarding 
these issues. It is my belief that the report can further 
inform today's hearing and the Committee's activities moving 
forward.
    This hearing is timely and important, and our discussion 
today will hopefully be a catalyst for further public and 
private sector action to reduce oil and gas sector methane 
emissions. When it comes to confronting the climate crisis, we 
must all do our part.

    Ms. Stevens If there are other witnesses--or, excuse me, if 
there are other Members who wish to submit additional opening 
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 
point.
    And at this time, I would like to introduce our witnesses. 
Our first witness is Dr. David Lyon. Dr. Lyon is a Senior 
Scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Dr. Lyon's 
work focuses on the analysis of methane emissions data, as well 
as research into technologies and policies to reduce natural 
gas leakage and minimize the climate impacts of natural gas 
development. Prior to working at EDF, Dr. Lyon worked for the 
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality as coordinator of 
the State's Air Pollution Emissions Inventory Program.
    Following Dr. Lyon is Mr. Riley Duren. Mr. Duren is Chief 
Executive Officer for Carbon Mapper, a Research Scientist at 
the University of Arizona. Carbon Mapper's mission is to use 
satellites to provide global monitoring of methane and CO2 
emissions at the facility scale to help accelerate climate 
mitigation actions. Prior to cofounding Carbon Mapper, Dr. 
Duren served as Principal Investigator for 10 research projects 
involving greenhouse gas observing systems and data analysis 
frameworks in his work supporting programs at NASA (National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration), NIST (National Institute 
of Standards and Technology), and NOAA (National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration).
    Our third witness is Dr. Brian Anderson. Dr. Anderson is 
the Director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, 
NETL, within the Department of Energy. He manages the NETL 
complex, leads NETL's national programs in carbon-based energy, 
and provides program support to other DOE offices. Under his 
leadership, NETL initiated critical technology development and 
deployment projects aimed at decarbonization, reduction of 
greenhouse gas emissions, and low-carbon power systems. In 
2021, the Biden Administration named Dr. Anderson Executive 
Director of the Interagency Working Group on Coal and 
Powerplant Communities and Economic Revitalization.
    Our final witness is Dr. Greg Rieker. Dr. Rieker is the Co-
Founder and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of LongPath 
Technologies and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering 
at the University of Colorado. Over the past decade, he led a 
team to transition Nobel Prize-winning laboratory laser 
technology into automated regional scale methane leak detection 
systems. LongPath Technologies was founded to commercialize 
that system into a broadly scalable, continuous monitoring 
system for oil and gas infrastructure. For this work, Dr. 
Rieker was recognized with the Colorado Governor's Award for 
High-Impact Research.
    As our witnesses should know, you will have five minutes 
for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be 
included in the record for the hearing. When you have completed 
your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions. Each 
Member will have five minutes to question the panel. We will 
start with Dr. Lyon.

                  TESTIMONY OF DR. DAVID LYON,

          SENIOR SCIENTIST, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND

    Dr. Lyon. Thank you. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Lucas, I 
am David Lyon, Senior Scientist for the Environmental Defense 
Fund. I've spent the last decade researching oil and gas 
methane emissions, working closely with experts in industry, 
academia, government, and other environmental organizations.
    Environmental Defense Fund is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 
organization with over 3 million members and 750 staff that 
uses science and economics to find solutions to the world's 
most serious environmental challenges, including climate 
change. Methane is both the primary constituent of natural gas 
and a powerful greenhouse gas with over 80 times the warming 
potential of carbon dioxide over the 20 years following its 
release, responsible for 1/4 of today's global warming.
    The good news is that global temperatures in 2050 could be 
reduced by 1/2 a degree Fahrenheit if methane emissions are cut 
in half by 2030. The oil and gas industry is the largest 
industrial source of methane emissions but also has the most 
cost-effective solutions for reducing emissions since capturing 
methane often means--apologies for not having the video. Yes, 
so the good news--so capturing methane often allows companies 
to sell more natural gas. Additionally, the methane mitigation 
industry provides many high-paying jobs and is rapidly growing. 
However, delaying the widespread adoption of mitigation 
measures will substantially worsen climate impacts and cause 
continuing harm to communities and workers.
    Although mitigating methane emissions is usually cost-
effective, there are several challenges in detecting and 
quantifying emissions in the oil and gas industry. First, oil 
and gas infrastructure is widespread with diverse site types, 
including wells, tank batteries, compressor stations, 
processing plants, and pipelines.
    Second, peer-reviewed research has found that the top five 
to 10 percent highest-emitting sources typically account for 
over 1/2 of oil and gas methane emissions. The sources, 
sometimes called super-emitters, can occur at almost any site, 
and their locations are difficult to predict, so all sites must 
be inspected for leakage.
    Finally, there are many emissions sources, particularly 
super-emitters, that emit intermittently. Therefore, leak 
inspection surveys may miss these episodic emissions if they 
are only observed during their off-state.
    Due to these challenges, the U.S. EPA's greenhouse gas 
inventory has been shown to underestimate oil and gas methane 
emissions by 50 percent compared to a measurement-based study 
that estimated 13 million metric tons of methane, equivalent to 
2.3 percent of the country's natural gas production and 
representing the waste of over $5 billion of a valuable natural 
resource.
    There are numerous available and emerging technologies for 
detecting and quantifying emissions, which can be grouped into 
two general categories: wide-area screening and continuous 
monitors. Screening approaches typically use remote-sensing 
technologies deployed on aircraft, drones, vehicles, or 
satellites to quickly inspect large numbers of sites for 
methane emissions. Many of these approaches both quantify 
emission rates and generate an image of the methane emissions 
plume, which can help operators determine the exact cause and 
source of the leak.
    In contrast, continuous monitors are installed at a 
stationary location to detect and sometimes quantify emissions 
at one or more nearby sites continuously or at a high 
frequency. For both screening and continuous approaches, 
rigorous field testing plus a clear understanding of how the 
technologies are incorporated into operator work practices is 
critical for their successful implementation.
    Federal agencies can effectively support research and 
implementation of methane detection, measurement, and 
mitigation technologies by funding two types of programs: 
First, accelerating the research and development of 
technologies, including instruments and data analysis; and two, 
collecting methane measurement data to better characterize 
emissions. Previous Federal research and development efforts 
such as the DOE ARPA-E monitor program have been highly 
successful in facilitating major improvements in several 
technologies. Additional funding could increase the diversity 
of available approaches and drive improvements in performance 
while reducing cost.
    Agencies such as NOAA, NASA, and NIST could use multiple 
measurement approaches such as satellite remote sensing to 
annually quantify both total and super-emitter methane 
emissions in major U.S. basins, which EPA could then use to 
assess the accuracy of the greenhouse gas inventory and 
prioritize updates.
    Additionally, emissions data could be used by EPA to 
increase the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of oil and gas 
methane regulations such as informing their proposal to allow 
advanced screening for leak detection. This federally funded 
data likely would enable companies to reduce their emissions 
and publish their own measurement data to demonstrate when they 
have lower methane intensity than their peers, which would help 
domestic and international consumers make informed decisions 
when they purchase natural gas.
    In summary, oil and gas methane emissions are a serious 
problem that has achievable solutions, and the Federal 
Government can drive emission reductions by funding the 
development and implementation of advanced technologies to 
quantify and mitigate emissions. Thank you for your time.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Lyon follows:]
    
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    Ms. Stevens. Let--next up is Mr. Duren. Can we please make 
sure the camera is on?

                 TESTIMONY OF MR. RILEY DUREN,

             CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CARBON MAPPER

    Mr. Duren. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Chair Johnson, 
Ranking Member Lucas, and Committee Members. I'm Riley Duren, 
CEO of Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit organization with a mission 
to deliver precise and transparent global methane and CO2 
emissions data at facility scale to help guide emission 
reductions.
    The urgency of cutting methane emissions can't be 
overstated. NOAA observations indicate growth rates in 
atmospheric methane concentrations over the past 2 years that 
are unprecedented since systematic measurements began in 1983. 
But there are solutions at hand that can still reverse course 
and limit global warming. It starts with making invisible 
emissions from all sources visible and therefore actionable.
    My comments today are grounded in a methane research 
program that helped establish over a decade ago at NASA's Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This research continues today at 
Carbon Mapper and through my joint appointment at the 
University of Arizona, and it's benefited from sustained 
support from NASA with contributions from NIST and the 
California Air Resources Board.
    Over the years, we've proved that, when armed with data 
insights on methane point sources, people can take action to 
stop these emissions. It was these research findings and the 
support of our philanthropic donors that motivated us to form a 
public-private partnership with JPL, Planet Labs, the State of 
California, and others to launch a global constellation of 
satellites starting next year to find, measure, and communicate 
emissions about methane and CO2 point source.
    The oil and gas industry has the tools and technology today 
to cut methane emissions more quickly and cheaper than any 
other sector if they know where to focus. The benefits of doing 
so extend far beyond climate. Given expanding demand for U.S. 
natural gas exports, managing methane emissions in the United 
States from oil and gas supply chain is becoming increasingly 
important for national security and global competitiveness. 
Additionally, because methane is an ozone precursor and is 
often co-emitted with other toxic compounds, improving methane 
monitoring and mitigation is important for local air quality, 
health, and environmental justice for millions of Americans who 
live in close proximity to oil and gas infrastructure.
    The U.S. oil and gas sector is characterized by millions of 
active and inactive production sites, pipelines, and other 
infrastructure distributed over vast and often inaccessible 
areas with significant variation in their age, operational 
status, productivity, and management practices employed by 
operators. This enterprise is a complex and entangled web of 
different jurisdictions and regulations, translating 
significant variability by region, production segment, and 
equipment type in terms of the monitoring requirements and 
enforcement responsibility.
    Many operators and regulators unfortunately today remain 
largely uninformed about actual methane leakage because current 
measurements are still too sparse, infrequent, or insensitive. 
And while some companies are undertaking prototype--prototyping 
programs, which is great, the resulting data is often 
proprietary or behind paywalls. The bottom line is most U.S. 
oil and gas infrastructure to date is still not sufficiently 
monitored for methane emissions.
    In recent years, our research team and our partners applied 
methane observations from surface sensor networks, aircraft, 
and satellites to quantify and track methane emissions from 
five U.S. onshore oil and gas basins, among other work that's 
summarized in my written testimony. We've seen concrete 
evidence that good data can translate directly to mitigation 
action. So, for example, by sharing advanced methane data in 
California with operators, our research pilots have led to 
voluntary methane leak repairs at 44 facilities that translate 
to over 1 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent 
reductions that have been verified by follow up overflights. 
Emerging examples in other States are showing that timely and 
precise data can enable real reductions.
    Congress has an opportunity to lead by marshaling U.S. 
science agency contributions to augment operational monitoring 
by companies with these recommendations. NASA and NOAH could 
commission annual surveys using satellite and airborne 
observations to quantify methane emissions from key U.S. 
onshore and offshore production basins to support the national 
greenhouse gas inventory and evaluate the overall efficacy of 
oil and gas methane regulations. NIST can establish standards 
for methane emission detection and quantification, including 
independent evaluation of basin and facility-level measurements 
to validate their accuracy. DOE and NASA could prioritize 
methane measurements in their technology development 
portfolios, including improved sensitivity, spatial and 
temporal completeness, and solutions to variable illumination 
conditions and wind uncertainty, which remain significant 
challenges.
    Federal agencies, in doing this, can maximize acquisition 
of data from non-Federal sources, including the private sector, 
academia, and nongovernmental organizations. By providing 
scientifically robust interpretation and transparent public 
dissemination of data, Federal science agencies are uniquely 
suited to leverage the expanding global ecosystem of methane 
observing systems.
    In closing, preventing methane leakage can prevent runaway 
warming now. There's an urgent need for U.S. science agencies 
to strengthen methane accounting and mitigation efforts by 
governments at all levels, companies, and broader civil 
society. And as I've mentioned, these investments can improve 
both U.S. standing and technical contributions internationally 
while supporting local air quality and equity needs of local 
communities across America.
    Thank you very much for the opportunity today, and I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Duren follows:]
    
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    Ms. Stevens. Great, thank you, Mr. Duren. And after that, 
we're going to hear from Dr. Anderson.

                TESTIMONY OF DR. BRIAN ANDERSON,

        DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY

    Dr. Anderson. Good morning and--Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking 
Member Lucas, and other distinguished Members of this 
Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss methane 
research--methane emissions research and development today, 
alongside my fellow distinguished witnesses.
    To help lead a clean energy revolution that achieves a 
carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and puts the United 
States on the irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050, 
we at NETL are accelerating technologies not only to 
decarbonize power generation and industrial sources to remove 
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate environmental 
impacts from fossil fuels, we're also working on the methane 
emissions technologies.
    Our essential technologies in the Administration's plan to 
decarbonize the economy, one, is the production of carbon-free 
hydrogen and ammonia in addition to carbon capture and 
sequestration. Where hydrogen and ammonia production relies on 
the existing natural gas production and distribution assets, 
there's an opportunity to achieve four different goals. We 
could stabilize the climate by taking cost-effective steps to 
tackle near-term threat of methane, a very potent greenhouse 
gas that we've discussed that accounts for about 1/2 of the 
rise in global average temperatures since the preindustrial 
era. We can keep communities free from contamination of their 
water and air supplies, we can advance American technology to 
address decarbonization, and we have an opportunity to create 
jobs.
    As outlined in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon 
Management's Strategic Vision, NETL supports research to 
address mitigation and quantification of methane emissions from 
fossil energy supply chains from resource production, 
processing, transportation, utilization, and storage. NETL is 
also developing accurate, cost-effective, efficient technology 
solutions and some best practices to help identify, measure, 
monitor, and eliminate methane emissions from these sources.
    There are unique challenges associated with methane 
emissions from the natural gas sector that include efficient 
and permanent plugging and abandonment of orphaned wells, 
resilient pipeline materials and aging equipment, and flaring 
of associated gas at the wellhead due to insufficient takeaway 
capacity through conversion to sustainable chemicals and solid 
carbon products.
    So our scientific research informs efforts to better 
understand methane emissions and to design more effective 
monitoring, quantification, and mitigation strategies through 
an integrated monitoring platform and to--and accelerating 
technology solutions that are focused on real-time, continuous 
monitoring. For example, since 2005, NETL has developed rapid 
airborne methods for locating undocumented orphaned wells 
through the development and field validation of advanced 
electromagnetic hardware and machine-learning software that 
helps bridge the knowledge gap and quantify emissions to 
prioritize the management for our plugging efforts.
    In addition, for the last decade, NETL has served as the 
Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management's national expert 
in evaluating and communicating lifecycle environmental 
information to stakeholders around--in the United States and 
around the globe to understand the natural gas extraction 
delivery and electricity production landscape.
    Our laboratory also focuses on low-cost, low-maintenance 
pipeline sensor technologies that can monitor corrosion rates, 
gas leaks, and gas stream chemistries and enable more 
intelligent natural gas infrastructure. NETL is also developing 
methods for integrating sensors via wireless telemetry, testing 
procedures for embedded sensors in coated pipelines, and 
conducting field-based tests of pipeline monitoring systems 
that verify performance, as well as having advanced pipeline 
materials for corrosion protection systems and real-time sensor 
technology.
    These innovative technologies are tools for methane 
monitoring detection and quantification, as I've mentioned 
before, and they're essential because quantifying methane 
emissions is complex, as we've discussed. It requires robust, 
resilient sensing platforms that operate ground-based, aerial-
based, satellite-based solutions focused on highly granular 
continuous data collection that can enable rapid response for 
methane mitigation operations. These technologies must also be 
supported by advanced communication protocols and 
transformational data analytics to observe methane 
concentrations associated with natural gas systems and provide 
predictive capabilities to repair and replace potential methane 
emission sources before they present an environmental concern.
    Through R&D and partnerships with industries, universities, 
other national laboratories, and of course Federal investments 
including the Department of Energy's ARPA-E program focused on 
reducing methane emissions, we will continue to drive the 
commercialization of products and processes that achieve U.S. 
and international decarbonization goals while supporting job 
creation and global competitiveness as the world's energy 
transition proceeds.
    So our quantification and mitigation portfolio has 43 
active projects both internal at NETL and with our extramural 
partners across methane detection field trials, equipment 
technologies, pipeline coatings, machine learning, and others, 
so thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss some of 
these cutting-edge innovations to methane emissions, which have 
applications within and beyond the energy sector.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Anderson follows:]
    
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    Ms. Stevens. Excellent. Great testimony so far.
    And next, we are going to hear from Dr. Rieker.

                 TESTIMONY OF DR. GREG RIEKER,

        CO-FOUNDER AND CTO, LONGPATH TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

    Dr. Rieker. All right, thank you very much, Chairwoman 
Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and distinguished Members of the 
Committee. Thank you for inviting me here to testify today.
    You can't improve what you don't measure, and that's been 
the topic of this discussion here and all of my work over the 
past decade. You heard about the work of the other witnesses 
interpreting data from satellites, airplanes, and field crews 
to generate large-scale emissions data sets for decision- and 
policymaking. The additional critical component that I hope to 
bring to the conversation is that the action of emissions 
mitigation happens at the local level. The oil and gas 
operators need to know in real time the location, the size of 
leaks so that they can fix the problem. And that's what 
LongPath brings to the challenge.
    And we've been called the 5G of methane, a network of 
continuous monitoring that feeds back instantaneous emissions 
data to oil and gas companies 24/7 and alerts them as leaks are 
happening. We use Nobel Prize-winning frequency comb lasers 
that emit hundreds of thousands of colors of light. We quantify 
the level of methane and other greenhouse gases by detecting 
how much of each color of that infrared light is absorbed while 
it's traveling through the atmosphere.
    The systems are tower-mounted, and each tower covers an 
area of about 20 square miles and provides specific 
quantitative emissions rate data on a well-by-well basis for 
customers within the purview of these towers. It's about 10 to 
1,000 times more sensitive than aerial and satellite approaches 
and quantifies emissions from specific facilities many times 
each day and each night. And critically, it sheds light on the 
intermittent emissions that were mentioned earlier, one of the 
most common forms of emissions in the field. There's nothing 
like this in the world, and it's the true product of American 
ingenuity and an example of government support for technology 
development in action, as the prior witness just mentioned.
    I started working with frequency combs that underpin this 
LongPath technology in 2012 at NIST, the National Institute of 
Standards and Technology, where a lot of the early government-
funded work on frequency combs happened. I moved as a Professor 
to the University of Colorado and was funded in 2014 by ARPA-E, 
the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency, 
that I know many of you on this Committee have played a heavy 
role in creating and maintaining, and thank you for that.
    Our team transitioned this technology finally to a proven 
commercial product in 2020, and we now have systems covering 
almost 300,000 acres with 17 oil and gas companies as 
customers. We are on track this year to reach almost 650,000 
acres with a boost from the ARPA-E scale-up program.
    What's important from this story, aside from the example it 
gives of the R&D machine in the United States in action, is 
that this, along with many other technologies that are coming 
into this space, have just reached the market in the last few 
years. The relative newness of these technologies means that 
there's a struggle on how they should be incorporated into 
policymaking, as well as a general lack of knowledge of their 
existence and capabilities within industry.
    I therefore hope that there are three things that you'll 
take away from my testimony today. The first is that powerful 
new technologies exist that can help us not just understanding 
emissions but give companies the kind of immediate feedback 
that they need to control them.
    The second is I urge you to consider technology evolution 
in the policymaking that this and other bodies are considering 
today. EPA policies that stipulate a particular technology or 
particular method or SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) 
rules that punt on measurement altogether and are based on 
counts of equipment and calculated emissions will set us back 
years in making American oil and gas the crown jewel of low 
emissions production worldwide. LongPath has provided to the 
EPA a detailed work practice and framework for the inclusion of 
continuous quantitative monitoring as an alternative means of 
compliance, performance-based compliance. And I hope this 
component will enter the upcoming role.
    And finally, third, I urge you to think about the role the 
government might play in methane emissions abatement as a 
public good and a public infrastructure just like a road or 
bridge or internet connectivity. Could we competitively bid an 
infrastructure project to build a multi-technology monitoring 
network across our production basins? LongPath, in 
collaboration with other methane data providers, can cover the 
Permian--it's one of our largest oil and gas basins in the 
United States--with the infrastructure for 24/7 monitoring for 
less than the cost of the last James Bond movie, so I think we 
have to sit and think what our priorities really are.
    Thank you for the opportunity, and I look forward to 
further questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Rieker follows:]
    
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    Ms. Stevens. Well, excellent. And before we start our 
questions, I have a letter here from GHGSat to be entered into 
the hearing record, and so without objection, so ordered.
    At this point, we're going to begin our first round of 
questions, and the Chair is going to recognize herself for five 
minutes.
    Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is 
one of the fastest, most cost-effective ways we could reduce 
global warming that changes our climate. And I'm committed to 
fighting climate change because it is fueling more severe 
weather events, extreme flooding, and power outages in the 
communities I represent in southeast Michigan.
    So, Dr. Lyon and Mr. Duren, both of you in your testimony 
highlighted the role of super-emitting methane leaks or, as you 
put it, Dr. Lyon, the mere five to 10 percent of methane 
sources that are responsible for more than 1/2 of all methane 
emissions from the oil and gas sector because of their massive 
size. The science is telling us that super-emitters are central 
to the problem, but the Committee staff investigation found 
that oil and gas companies are failing to prioritize super-
emitters in their methane mitigation programs. The companies 
are not defining them, tracking them, or targeting operational 
changes to try to anticipate them and reduce their frequency.
    So, Dr. Lyon, is the scientific evidence regarding the role 
of super-emitting leaks compelling enough that oil and gas 
companies should be making them a priority?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think there is enough scientific evidence 
to show that super-emitters are major problem and should be one 
of the priorities of oil and gas companies, so really trying to 
detect these super-emitters and then do root-cause analysis to 
figure out what changes need to be done to prevent the 
recurrence. But there also are a lot of emissions from other 
sources, including low-production wells, so I think it really 
takes a comprehensive approach of both addressing the super-
emitters and the more lower-emission source types.
    Ms. Stevens. And, Mr. Duren, what are the implications of 
failing to address super-emitting leaks for the oil and gas 
sector's ability to reduce methane emissions widely and 
quickly?
    Mr. Duren. Well, I think the big argument is opportunity 
loss. I think it's been pointed out by a number of speakers and 
some of the Committee Members that, you know, super-emitters 
represent low-hanging fruit. They're the fastest way and in 
many cases the most cost-effective way to reduce a lot of 
methane really quickly. We have a new paper out or coming out 
soon looking at multiple U.S. oil and gas basins that find that 
between 20 and 60 percent of the regional emissions are 
basically dominated by a small number, usually maybe 100 or so, 
super-emitters. And it's not all oil and gas but it's a lot of 
it. And that to me is just--it makes a lot of--it's common 
sense to go after the big ones first. This is like triage. If 
you think about it, if you've got heart trouble, you need to 
treat the heart attack first and then worry about your long-
term, you know, need to get on statins and so forth. So, you 
know, I think there's a need to address all of these sources.
    And as a--I think as Dr. Rieker also pointed out here is 
this--you know, there's no Swiss-Army-knife approach to this. 
We need a system-of-systems approach, and that means focusing 
measurements on the different classes of emitters, including 
super-emitters but also a lot of smaller emitters. And it 
really does take a systems approach to get there. And, 
fortunately, we have technologies in the science community and 
in the oil and gas industry that are becoming shovel-ready. We 
need to scale up and operationalize them and put them to work 
across the United States so we can close these leaks.
    Ms. Stevens. Yes. Well, we are all about the systems 
approach here on the Science Committee and understanding that 
any problem is a--understanding any problem is the key to 
solving the problem, so quantifying methane emissions, 
measuring the size of methane leaks individually and 
collectively is vital to grasp the scale of the problem and 
improve the mitigation techniques to fix it. And that's why the 
findings of the Committee staff investigation are so obviously 
alarming and obviously disappointing regarding the 
unwillingness of oil and gas companies to use quantification 
data to improve their leak detection and repair (LDAR) 
programs.
    So, Dr. Lyon, how important is it for oil and gas companies 
to incorporate quantification data into their methane 
mitigation efforts in order to act more efficiently and 
effectively?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think for the--particularly the leak 
detection and repair programs it's important to have kind of a 
pseudo-quantification, so I don't think companies need to know 
exactly how much emissions are from various sources but have 
the rough order of magnitude so they can prioritize the 
repairs. I think where quantification is very valuable is more 
in the reporting, so having a method so that companies can use 
measurements to accurately report their emissions and give 
confidence to consumers and other stakeholders that the 
reported gas performance is accurate.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. Well, thank you. And with that, I'm 
going to yield back and recognize Mr. Lucas for five minutes of 
questions.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Dr. Rieker, as I mentioned in my opening statement, ARPA--
the ARPA-E program at DOE has received bipartisan support from 
this Committee for many years. In fact, Chairwoman Johnson and 
I led legislation that reauthorized and increased funding for 
ARPA-E last Congress. It was signed into law as part of the 
Energy Act, and we're looking forward to the program's success 
over the next couple of years as a result of that.
    I was pleased to see that LongPath is a two-time ARPA-E 
award recipient, but I remain concerned that even technologies 
like yours that receive Federal funding still run into Federal 
regulations that can ultimately kill its commercialization. So 
my question is how do you and other ARPA-E projects with long-
term uses like the Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation 
Center interact with the regulatory agencies like the EPA 
during the ARPA-E funding process?
    Dr. Rieker. That's an excellent question, and thanks again 
for your support to ARPA-E.
    So I think it's incredibly important that we understand 
sort of the cycle of how we--how these problems come to light 
and then how we solve them, you know, so there's early work 
that's done by NOAA, by EDF, and others that kind of identifies 
the problem. That's when, you know, the folks at ARPA-E and DOE 
and NETL started to come in with programs that would support 
technologies that could, you know, solve this problem in a 
reasonable way.
    I think there's a right time to kind of bring in the 
regulatory aspect of this, and I think that right time is as 
we're starting to understand what technologies are going to be 
able to solve this problem. And so what we've done as part of 
the--you know, our work with ARPA-E is try to engage with EPA 
as much as we possibly can, hold several meetings to bring them 
up to speed on what technologies are coming along, but most 
importantly, I think it's been up to us to kind of develop work 
practices that we can offer to the EPA for inclusion in 
rulemaking and suggestions for that so that these technologies 
don't get overlooked. It's a difficult problem because these 
technologies are being developed so quickly and tested so 
quickly to be able to capture everything into these rulemakings 
as they happen. So I think often, you know, lots and lots of 
communication, that's the key.
    Mr. Lucas. Continuing to discuss this particular genre, 
generally speaking, do you think current EPA rules and 
regulations are slowing down innovation?
    Dr. Rieker. I think that the current rules--and there was 
mention, I think, in your testimony about AMEL, which is the 
alternative means to allow technologies like this to come in, 
those are onerous for technologies like ours. And part of that 
is that it's--it has to do with the fact that we certify, you 
know, an emissions technology on a particular facility. There 
are tens of thousands of facilities across all of these oil and 
gas basins, and so I think it's very important that on-ramping 
of new technologies, alternative technologies based on 
equivalency to current standards, which is what Colorado and 
other States have chosen to pursue, that's incredibly important 
to allowing our technologies to supplant some of these 
requirements. We've heard from operator after operator. I'm 
already going to have to do this, why should I, you know, pay 
more to do an alternative technology? So it's incredibly 
important.
    Mr. Lucas. The University of Oklahoma currently manages 
NASA's Geostationary Carbon Cycle observation science 
operations and is responsible for science integrity of the 
mission. This will be the first U.S. satellite to precisely 
measure methane near Earth's surface and deliver much-needed 
data on the health of vegetation across the Americas and the 
release of naturally occurring greenhouse gases.
    Mr. Duren, since your organization focuses on global 
methane data, I'll start with you, and anybody else who wishes 
to comment can certainly chime in. If a system like GeoCarb 
proves accurate and useful for measuring methane at a highly 
granular level, do you think we should consider supporting a 
network of low-Earth orbiting and geostationary-located 
satellites globally like we have for our weather--space-based 
weather detection system already?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. I think that's a really good example 
of--and you--what you--you just--I think you've kind of 
partially answered the question with the Weather Service 
analogy. And back to my point about a system-of-systems 
approach, the current and planned satellites like GeoCarb, like 
Carbon Mapper, like GHGSat, like satellites that are being 
fielded by the European Union and even the Chinese Space Agency 
have different capabilities to sense methane, and they are 
largely complementary and they bring different things to the 
table.
    And so back to my point about there isn't a Swiss Army 
knife; we need a systems approach. And I for one am excited 
about seeing NASA launch GeoCarb because it will provide high-
frequency data that is difficult to get with other satellites.
    Mr. Lucas. Since these are worldwide issues, having the 
ability on a worldwide basis to assess the data just seems 
logical, much like the weather patterns.
    With that, I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we'll hear from 
Congresswoman Bonamici for five minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chair 
Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas and to our witnesses for this 
important hearing.
    The Committee staff's investigation into methane leaks 
revealed some alarming data about the true scale of methane 
emissions from the oil and gas sector. In particular it's 
extremely concerning that internal company data shows that just 
a few massive methane leaks can account for most or all of the 
methane that a company reports to the EPA for its production 
operations in an entire year. This suggests that methane 
emissions from oil and gas sector are likely far greater than 
the official data indicates.
    So I'm going to ask each person on the panel, what would it 
mean if oil and gas companies better used quantification data 
to understand their aggregate methane emissions? And is 
additional innovation needed or do we have adequate technology 
now? If you could do that in a sentence or two, Dr. Lyon, 
please start.
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think companies can use multiple 
measurements to quantify their emissions. I think the big 
question now is how they report that data. So currently, the 
EPA greenhouse gas reporting program has very prescribed 
methods, mostly kind of bottom-up emission factors. So I think 
the key would be updating the greenhouse gas reporting programs 
to allow companies to use scientifically rigorous measurements 
to estimate their emissions.
    Ms. Bonamici. Great. And do we have adequate technology now 
or do we need more innovation, Dr. Lyon?
    Dr. Lyon. I think we have adequate measurement technology, 
but some of the data analysis, there are some outstanding 
questions, but I think they are very close to being solved.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Mr. Duren, same question. What 
would it mean?
    Mr. Duren. I think the big gaps we have now largely have to 
do with scale up and operationalization. It is about how much 
area is covered, how much the equipment is sampled and how 
frequently. It's--we're making great progress in selected areas 
with pilot programs and prototyping, but we're only a small 
fraction of the way there. We need ways to help the industry 
and agencies scale up quickly, and so it really is an 
operationalization--I think largely operational scheme today, 
and then again, working on research to enable additional 
improvements down the road.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Anderson?
    Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I agree with both previous 
witnesses. What I would add to that is there are certainly many 
of the super-emitters, some of them, as we've heard, 10 percent 
is 1/2. We also have some numbers that indicate that 20 percent 
is 80--20 percent of the emitters are 80--result in 80 percent 
of the emissions. And certainly the identification of those 
lowest-hanging fruit gives us a tremendous opportunity with 
existing technologies for replacing equipment, either 
compressors and valves, that those technologies are ready to 
replace many of the super-emitters.
    Ms. Bonamici. So you mentioned existing technologies. Do we 
need additional innovation, or do we have adequate technology 
now, Dr. Anderson?
    Dr. Anderson. Well, there's--adequate technologies that 
begin the pathway of the low-hanging fruit, but the advances in 
technologies both in mitigation, long-term mitigation and 
prevention, as well as in total quantification and covering the 
full landscape. So being able to cover larger swaths of the 
infrastructure with less technology, less investment is an 
upcoming technological advance we need.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Rieker, same question, what 
would it mean, and do we need additional innovation?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes. So I--yes, I just want to follow on to 
what everybody else was saying there, that the technology 
exists. It's the scaling that we're in the process of doing 
right now.
    One thing I wanted to add, though, is that I think it's 
smart to have certification and think about certification as a 
way to reduce confusion on quantification within the industry.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
    Dr. Rieker. There's been a lot of technologies developed, 
and that confusion can exist if we don't have certification of 
these technologies.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Lyon, in your testimony you 
mentioned that systems and technologies needed to cut emissions 
in half by 2030 are widely available and inexpensive, so that 
should be great news, but in 2021 it was a second record-
breaking year in a row for annual growth of methane emissions, 
so clearly we're not where we need to be. So Dr. Lyon, I know 
you've worked with operators in your work through the EDF, so 
in your opinion, why are companies not seeking out and 
implementing the technologies you describe as widely available 
and inexpensive?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think some companies are starting to 
implement the technologies. It's more the whole system of how 
they use the methane detection technologies to assess issues, 
and they're finding that a lot of the issues are more things 
like operational or maintenance problems, so it may require 
things like them to redesign their site. So I think it's 
requiring--it is a learning process of both kind of integrating 
the methane emissions data with understanding their own 
operational systems so they can really reduce their emissions 
and increase their operational efficiency.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And, Mr. Duren, I think I have a 
few seconds left. You made a similar comment in your testimony. 
Do you have anything you can add?
    Mr. Duren. Just quickly that the issue here is 
completeness. We need wider area coverage, more frequent 
sampling, and more sensitive measurements if we're going to see 
enough of the methane to a big impact on mitigating it.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. And with that, we're going to hear from Mr. 
Posey for five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens.
    Dr. Rieker, with 75 percent of Florida's electricity being 
generated by natural gas and our nationwide electric grid 
already facing unprecedented number of threats such as rolling 
blackouts, do you believe the proposed rules in their current 
form increase compliance burdens or operating costs for 
existing natural gas production sites?
    Dr. Rieker. I'm sorry, it broke up just at the end. Could 
you repeat the end of the question?
    Mr. Posey. Yes. In the current form, do you think that the 
proposed rules will increase operating costs for existing 
natural gas production sites?
    Dr. Rieker. I think for existing natural gas production 
sites what we're showing with our data is that the cost to add 
this type of monitoring and repair is often paying for itself 
in terms of lost product. Gas prices are quite high right now, 
so that's especially the case, but I do think, you know, 
getting these technologies out, we're finding that the cost 
burdens can be offset often by keeping things in the pipe.
    Mr. Posey. Yes, I mean, Floridians have already seen a 20 
percent increase in their electric bills this year. Do you 
think this will exacerbate that?
    Dr. Rieker. I don't see this as exacerbating it more than 
sort of the--you know, the world conditions that exist around, 
you know, natural gas and oil production. You know, certainly 
everything that we do to add a little bit to what's happening 
and what's being done on these oil and gas production sites 
could add cost.
    Mr. Posey. With the need of making sure Floridians have 
access to affordable, reliable electricity, what would the 
proposed rules lead to higher electricity bills?
    Dr. Rieker. This is--again, this is difficult for me as 
sort of the arbiter of data that's out there in terms of what's 
happening on leakage, and so that's one I might need to follow 
up on in terms of how I think that would come down to costs for 
consumers.
    Mr. Posey. What recommendations do you have for the EPA to 
ensure that the cost for the natural gas industry in meeting 
regulatory requirements and in meeting--incorporating the new 
methane emissions reduction and detention technology don't 
jeopardize the operations of existing sources?
    Dr. Rieker. Absolutely, that's a great question, and I 
think that's allowing these new technologies to have the proper 
on-ramp that--as I was saying before, that don't require, you 
know, an operator to do exactly what's stipulated today and try 
to add new technology on top of that. Making that on-ramp for 
new technology will allow them to cut the costs of some of the 
older, more efficient ways of doing the detection.
    Mr. Posey. I got you. Well, thank you very much. Madam 
Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from 
Dr. McNerney for five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chair. Hey, I thank the 
witnesses. You guys are great. I love your testimony. It's a 
very exciting field. I think the technology being discussed 
here represents a great potential to simultaneously eliminate 
economic loss while addressing harmful emissions. It's a win-
win situation to capture methane, and we should become a 
national global leader in this issue.
    Dr. Anderson, how could analytic advanced approaches like 
artificial intelligence (AI) help improve data analysis and 
make information more usable to operators?
    Dr. Anderson. Thank you for the question, and I'm really 
excited about the opportunities for machine learning, 
artificial intelligence, data analytics because, as we deploy 
more sensor technologies and--with more varying types of 
sensors and gathering those data, integrating them together to 
create predictive capabilities for even sensing and predicting 
when you might have leaks from pipelines or being able to 
integrate multiple sensor technologies into predictive 
capabilities, when we can embed that into the technologies that 
are being deployed to lower the integration barrier for 
operators, then you can start having an opportunity to make 
real-time decisions, operators can make real-time decisions and 
even have automated systems that can close valves and adjust 
compressor conditions when potential leakages are occurring. So 
there's a real opportunity of combining at the cyber-physical 
interface data analytics and machine learning.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, yes, that's exactly what I'm getting 
at, and the predictive capabilities I think is a real promise. 
What about using AI to help detect or identify the super-
emitters?
    Dr. Anderson. I think when we're--you know, in particular 
we have some opportunities for top-down and bottom-up 
measurement convergence. That's going to be--we can start to 
identify the gaps between the top-down assessments and the 
bottom-up assessments that can point to potentially unknown 
super-emitters. And by analyzing large data sets or large 
swaths of land, including satellite-based and aerial-based 
imagery, then we can start to identify potentially unknown 
super-emitters that might be abandoned or orphaned wells that--
you know, most of the super-emitters that are on infrastructure 
are pretty well-known, but I think there's an opportunity for 
large-scale data analytics from top-down to bottom-up.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Dr. Rieker, hey, your technology 
looks pretty exciting. Using the electromagnetic spectrum to 
identify emitters and where they are is really good. Could you 
discuss--or when you discussed deploying LongPath's technology 
with prospective oil and gas clients, do they appreciate the 
potential benefits of a more effective, more science-based 
approach to methane mitigation or are you getting pushback?
    Dr. Rieker. No, I think that right now so many of the 
adoption of these new--so much of the adoption of these new 
technologies is voluntary that we're seeing oil and gas 
customers bring this system onto their fields, like what 
they're seeing, tell their neighbor. Again, this is a tower-
based approach that can cover multiple operators at once. And 
so I think they're starting to understand what the real-time 
feedback can do for their operations. So we've not seen a lot 
of pushback on that.
    As I mentioned earlier, I think having kind of third-party 
certification of the quantification that's capabilities that 
are associated with these technologies is really important 
because I think it's sort of easy when you have many 
technologies out there, some that work better than others to 
paint with a very broad brush and say, well, this technology 
doesn't quantify, well, maybe this one doesn't quantify well 
either, and that's just not true. Each technology is specific.
    So I think that we're seeing kind of open-arms adoption of 
this technology. I think the real question, as was mentioned in 
some of the testimony earlier, is they're learning as fast as 
they can how to bring this technology--or how the data from 
this technology can be integrated into their operations in a 
very efficient manner, and that's what we're seeing through all 
these different trials right now is how do we best use the 
data.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. Dr. Lyon, are there 
particular categories of observation technologies that need 
more investment or need to be scaled up rapidly in order to 
fill in the gaps to create a more comprehensive monitoring 
system?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think it's really several technologies and 
how to integrate them, so I think any technology that can image 
the emissions is highly valuable because it can help the 
operator really pinpoint where the emissions are coming from, 
so I think improving those imaging technologies but also 
continuous monitors, so really improving continuous monitoring 
and particularly the data analytics so that the operators can 
really effectively and quickly find emission sources and then 
repair them.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from 
Dr. Baird for five minutes of questioning if he's with us.
    All right. How about Mr. Feenstra?
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member 
Lucas, and thank you to all the experts on our panel for 
sharing their expertise and experience on this issue we're 
discussing today.
    I'm proud to say that my district is a leader in energy 
alternatives to oil and gas. Biofuels, like those produced in 
my district, emit little to no methane and can help reduce 
methane emissions in our Nation's energy portfolio.
    Dr. Rieker, let's talk about some of the problems with the 
EPA's current approach to methane monitoring. Right now, the 
only compliance methods are handheld cameras or handheld 
sensors. That means it requires someone to physically go site 
to site and conduct the monitoring, which, by logic, would mean 
that some kind of emissions from their car could be detected. 
In this technology you develop more accurate if not simply 
equally accurate information. Is there other compliance methods 
that we could currently look at?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes, in addition to our technology, so I think 
it's a great question, and I think it's great to point that 
out. It's a very labor-intensive process as it's kind of 
currently implemented in terms of these handheld cameras. 
That's what my--you know, our company and many of the others 
that have been described here are trying to reduce, that human 
intensity and increase the frequency with which measurements 
are being made.
    So I think the bottom line is trying to, again, create 
those on-ramps for technologies like ours not to just purely 
supplant the need for, you know, optical gas imaging and crews 
to go around and do some of these sweeps but rather to direct 
those technologies so that they spend more time looking at and 
actually identifying the leaks that they're going to be fixing 
right there on the spot rather than spending a lot of time 
looking at facilities that aren't leaking.
    So I think it comes down to seeing how we can make these 
regulations more performance-based and, again, leaving the door 
open for technologies that can increase the efficiency that 
these types of regulations are implemented.
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you. I appreciate those comments. 
They're very important.
    Dr. Anderson, a research group at Iowa State University in 
my district has discovered and tested a way to keep methane out 
of the atmosphere. The process uses an extremely thin layer of 
platinum as a catalyst and converts methane into chemicals like 
ethylene. They are typically used in plastics and other 
materials. In your testimony, you mention other methane 
conversion techniques that involve electricity and microwave 
reactors to convert methane into hydrogen or formic acid. How 
do you see these and other methane conversion techniques 
factoring into the future of methane reduction strategies?
    Dr. Anderson. Well, thank you for that, and I applaud the 
work on--at Iowa State. And we have a lot of work going on at 
the laboratory across our portfolio in the methane conversion. 
There are opportunities in scaling down those chemical 
conversion technologies to where they can be deployed in the 
field through modular processes. Converting into liquid fuels 
or hydrogen or even ammonia resulting in lower emissions at the 
wellhead in the field and then transportation systems would 
result in lower emissions across the midstream infrastructure 
as well. So a portfolio of those technologies of methane 
conversion into solid carbon products, as well as low-carbon or 
zero-carbon energy carriers will play a role in the portfolio, 
particularly as we move into more deployment of hydrogen 
technologies as well.
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you for that. Just so for application 
purposes, where do you see this going? I mean, do you see this 
3 years out, 5 years out on where we can actually use the 
research that is being done to actually have the application 
done in the field?
    Dr. Anderson. On some of the modular conversion 
technologies that are achieving some high maturity rates today, 
so in terms of deployment in the field and the stranded natural 
gas assets that exist in the Permian Basin and North Dakota 
just north of you in Iowa, there are some opportunities within 
the next decade to be able to deploy those. Many of them would 
be around the commercial viability, economic viability.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, I appreciate you saying that in the 
next 10 years. That's why it's so important we do the research 
and it's so critical that our universities are doing this 
research, and we have to make sure we fund this research and 
get this done sooner than later. Thank you for your comments. I 
yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And now we'll hear from Mr. Casten for 
five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Casten. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks so much to all 
of our witnesses.
    You know, I'm--I love the Science Committee because we get 
all this good, fascinating information on data, but I think 
sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we measure these 
things because ultimately we have to go through and figure out 
how to reduce them. And of course that's beyond the 
jurisdiction of this Committee, but, you know, if my neighbors 
were piping their sewage into my back lawn, I would have a 
small problem of not knowing how much sewage is coming. I would 
have a big problem with the pile of sewage.
    I mention that because we are at a moment where we have hit 
an all-time high for CO2 in the atmosphere at 421 
parts per million. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change) report that just came out said that we have already 
overshot 1.5. We're at two degrees of warming. It only feels 
like 1.1 because of all the soot in the atmosphere, which is 
cooling. And what was very clear when we were in Glasgow was 
that the only tool we had was to get the methane down as 
quickly as possible as a short-term forcer of warming to offset 
what's going to happens when the soot drops out.
    I say that because if we look at this current moment, as 
some of my colleagues are in saying we should celebrate our 
progress, we are falling victim to what that famous Wildcatter 
George W. Bush said in condemning ourselves to the soft bigotry 
of low expectations.
    Mr. Anderson, I want to come to you. If we are going to get 
the methane down, we need to not only know how much of it there 
is but understand where it is being released and the causality 
with enough information to understand where is it being 
released at granular levels, temporally at granular levels, 
geographically, accommodating for various weather events. And 
what I'd love to hear from you is if we are to get at that 
level of causality, what are the top research priorities to 
really develop that kind of robust methane monitoring quickly?
    Dr. Anderson. So, quickly, I think that, you know, some of 
it we have a number of undocumented wells that are currently 
emitting that are off of the infrastructure with a more 
difficult time to control. We are at the time right now with 
the bipartisan infrastructure law and the funding in the 
Department of Interior for plugging orphaned and abandoned 
wells so we need to very quickly ensure that we have the 
technologies to identify those non-known super-emitters so that 
we can plug those wells in the coming years. And then also on 
the infrastructure, again, I think that there is a lot known 
already about where those are, and so ensuring that the 
opportunities are there to deploy the technology that would cut 
down on the super-emitters on infrastructure already is 
absolutely necessary.
    Mr. Casten. OK. So if we were to build this out--and I know 
we've been back and forth about, you know, what are the actual 
numbers, which of course was the whole question of this report. 
Do we even trust what the numbers are? It strikes me that the 
data that we have is in a lot of different data bases. We have 
satellite data, we have LDAR data, we have--you know, private 
companies have their own metering data that are doing massive 
energy balances on their pipelines. Does that--and this is a 
question for any witness who wants to answer it. Does that data 
exist in some kind of comprehensive database? And if not, would 
there be value in a--in some kind of a federally organized 
consortium to get that data so that we could actually 
understand where the--where we have gaps?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, I'd like to comment on that. We've had some 
discussions with Federal agencies about this. You've put your 
finger on an important gap. The short answer to your question 
is no, there is no such data base. Currently, there are two 
types of emissions data out there. There's what I call type 1, 
which is focused at the national inventory level and maybe the 
level of States, and that's aggregate-level emission. A lot of 
that data is in the public domain. It's generated by Federal 
science agencies like NOAA, NASA, and EPA, and that--and 
there's more we could do to operationalize that, provide more 
routine tracking to see how things are working writ large.
    But what's really missing is the type 2 emissions data. 
That's what we've been mainly talking about in this hearing, 
and that is data at the scale of individual facilities that 
operators can use to drive leak repair. And that is largely 
today still very spotty where it does exist. A lot of it is 
still proprietary behind paywalls, and there definitely is room 
and need for some sort of national data clearinghouse for data 
that is quality-controlled and reviewed and credible and can be 
disseminated and used by many actors to get our arms around 
these leaks.
    Mr. Casten. So just to that point with the time I have 
left, the--it strikes me that once an oil and gas company has 
custody of the gas in their pipeline, they have an economic 
interest in getting as much of it to a meter as possible. But 
upstream you've got multiple players, different releases, and 
we're into the scenario of my neighbor dumping sewage in my 
yard. Do you think that there is a way to get that data without 
some kind of mandatory reporting requirements and penalties for 
noncompliance?
    Mr. Duren. The short answer is yes. That's a complex answer 
and probably worth a follow up conversation with more Members 
of the panel and others who aren't here today.
    Mr. Casten. Well, I'll take you up on that date, and I 
yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. Stevens. And now we're going to hear from Mr. Babin for 
five minutes of questioning. Thank you.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you, Madam Chair, I appreciate it. I want 
to thank Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas and thank 
all of our witnesses for being here today.
    Last month, the Biden Administration provided sanctions 
relief to Venezuela to encourage additional oil production 
there. According to the International Energy Agency's methane 
tracker, Venezuela has the highest methane emissions intensity 
in the entire world. The methane emissions from a barrel of oil 
produced in Venezuela are almost 8 times higher than the 
average barrel of oil produced in the United States. So if 
President Biden is blocking domestic production due to climate 
concerns, I'm curious why those same climate concerns don't 
apply to foreign countries that are run by dictators.
    My question to all of the witnesses would be would it not 
be advantageous from a climate perspective to focus on ramping 
up our own energy production here in the United States, which 
is far cleaner than Venezuela and quite frankly other--any 
other Nation in the world that produces oil and gas. If I could 
hear that, please, briefly.
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can answer that. I think there is an 
opportunity for the United States and the U.S. oil and gas 
companies to use measurements in a transparent way to 
demonstrate when their methane emissions are lower than some of 
the international competitors. And I think really we can build 
trust in a bunch of the stakeholders, including consumers for 
perhaps, you know, U.S. LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports, so 
I think it really is advantageous to the United States when we 
can use measurements to really--to demonstrate to the public 
that our gas--when it does have lower methane emissions.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you.
    Mr. Duren. I would quickly add that the satellite evidence 
unfortunately indicates that the United States is actually one 
of the highest methane emitters on the planet, and that's a 
paper we published in the journal Science with colleagues from 
Europe a few months ago that show there are a few jurisdictions 
where there is quite large methane emissions. And I think this 
is an opportunity for the United States get out in front and 
lead. If we can reduce our emissions and show it through 
transparent data, then the markets will win out because, you 
know, given the realignment we're seeing in natural gas supply 
chains in Europe, there's increasing demand for U.S. natural 
gas, and it benefits the United States from a strategic 
perspective and U.S. private sector and the world if we can 
reduce our emissions and show it transparently and provide 
visibility into all those other jurisdictions so U.S.----
    Mr. Babin. Well, Mr. Duren, I would hope that you would 
send me and provide me with documentation that that is true 
that we are producing more methane because every single 
statistic that I see, we have the cleanest production methods 
here in the United States. And I proudly represent the 36th 
District of Texas.
    Anybody else want to say anything there?
    Dr. Rieker. I think I'll just chime in and say that, as was 
mentioned earlier, the United States is light-years ahead in 
developing the capabilities for measurement and for reducing 
emissions across these fields, and so to the extent that we can 
accelerate that work, we are going to be able to be the gold 
standard and the provable gold standard for emissions. And I 
don't think it's far away. I think it can be done quickly so--
--
    Mr. Babin. Yes. Thank you.
    Dr. Rieker [continuing]. I support that, that we need to 
push our own production.
    Mr. Babin. Right. Thank you very much.
    OK. Second question to all, are you aware of any country 
that has methane monitoring capabilities equal to what our oil 
and gas industry has? Because according to Wood Mackenzie, 
offshore deepwater production carried out in areas such as the 
Gulf of Mexico has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of all 
sources of oil in the entire world. In fact, a 2016 analysis 
published by the Obama Administration's Bureau of Offshore 
Energy Management, BOEM, concluded that ending lease sales in 
the Gulf of Mexico would increase, increase global emissions by 
saying, quote, ``U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be higher 
if BOEM were to have no lease sales. Emissions from 
substitutions are higher due to exploration, development, 
production, and transportation of oil from international 
sources being more carbon-intensive,'' unquote. Of course, 
ending offshore lease sales, which makes us less secure, raises 
energy prices, and increases global emissions is a centerpiece 
of President Biden's climate agenda.
    So if--does anyone on the panel disagree that given that 
demand is constant, one of the best ways to reduce lifecycle 
greenhouse gas emissions is to displace Russian and Iranian 
energy by expanding U.S. offshore oil and gas production? And 
following up on that, is it possible to expand U.S. oil and gas 
production while also continuing to decrease U.S. methane 
emissions? So if you can tell me the answer to those questions, 
do you know any other country that has methane monitoring 
capabilities equal to our own industry? And answer the other 
questions that I had asked in the time that I have allotted, 
please.
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can answer briefly. Yes, I do not think 
any other countries meet the United States' expertise in oil 
and gas--in methane measurements, and I do think we can likely 
increase our production while lowering methane emissions, and 
that will allow us to better compete with other countries who 
export oil and gas and have not invested in methane mitigation.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you. I think I'm out of time, so I yield 
back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from 
Dr. Foster for five minutes of questioning. Thank you.
    Mr. Foster. Yes, I think one of the key things here is that 
your--Representative Babin's comment that given that demand is 
constant, that can't be true if we're going to actually solve 
the climate problem, that we have to find ways to displace 
natural gas basically as soon as we can with hopefully hydrogen 
and others.
    But given that we have this problem, could anyone say 
something about the end point of the comparison with space-
based and land-based or, I don't know, drone-based approaches? 
What is the best worldwide solution to this? Or do we have--and 
for example, if it is land-based solution, then our best 
strategy is to develop this technology and then give it away 
for free or heavily subsidize it to the rest of the world to 
get them to adopt it. And what is the low-cost way to get 
adequate measuring so that we actually measure the sources that 
are economically plausible to fix? Does anyone----
    Mr. Duren. I'll start. I think it's--again, it's going to 
require a combination of methods. I don't think there's a best 
solution. I think it is the portfolio of methods that we need. 
We're seeing this emerge now with pilot projects. Our own 
research team has been using surface networks satellites, and 
aircraft for over a decade, and a lot of people in industry are 
doing this now. And I think the question is how do you scale 
up? And I think the answer to your question, Congressman, is 
how do you export this internationally? Because it's a little 
bit of a mixed bag. Some jurisdictions would benefit a lot from 
U.S. satellite data. Others would benefit from the technologies 
like LongPath. And I think it's--again, it's a great 
opportunity for the U.S. research and development enterprise to 
export U.S. know-how, and it's going to lift a lot of ships 
around the world.
    Dr. Rieker. Yes, this is Greg Rieker. I would agree with 
that. LongPath is doing its first international partnerships 
down in Australia in the coming months, and as was mentioned 
earlier, the kind of expertise not just with our company but 
many companies in the United States that have cropped up around 
this, the ability to export is extremely high. There's--we're 
just way ahead, and I think we're going to be able to get out 
there and get in front of this problem in other countries as 
well.
    I think the mixing of the data is really important. The 
satellite data can give you the global coverage in a much--you 
know, much sooner than we can scale up ground-based 
technologies. Again, the nice thing about the ground-based 
technologies is the high-frequency and the high-resolution, you 
know, going facility by facility and delivering the data 
immediately to the customer so that they can fix this. So I 
think it's--what you're going to see is waves of adoption, you 
know, and satellites getting first to global coverage and then 
ground-based networks building up behind that.
    Mr. Foster. The ultimate economics of it, are you going to 
just put lots and lots of satellites up there to get a higher 
frequency of measurement? Is that just going to end up not 
being a winning strategy, or is that something that's a 
plausible endpoint? One of the things I think we all worry 
about is that there are certain jurisdictions that may not be 
enthusiastic about having their emissions measured for a 
variety of reasons. Are there--you know, has anyone had a look 
at the ultimate economics of, for example, a very extensive 
space-based system and how that would compare?
    Mr. Duren. Well, I think there's--sorry, I didn't mean to 
interrupt.
    Mr. Foster. Go ahead.
    Mr. Duren. I was just going to say that your point is 
exactly why we need the global systems because the global 
energy supply chain is interconnected, there's not a single 
supplier of natural gas, is it benefits the United States to 
deploy remote-sensing technology and ground-based sensors 
around the world so that we have overall excellent situational 
awareness everywhere.
    To your cost point, this is one of the reasons why many of 
us on this--I think on this panel and elsewhere are 
recommending to EPA that they adopt a matrix approach when 
asking operators to choose technologies that they can select 
between different price points that provide different levels of 
performance. Some work better in some regions and jurisdictions 
than others for different questions and providing that 
flexibility gives industry and regulators, you know, the 
degrees of freedom they need to innovate. And so rather than 
picking the winner up front is to provide a flexible approach 
that allows the most cost-effective, highest mitigation 
potential.
    Dr. Rieker. Absolutely. And I would just add--and I think, 
you know, the technological challenges for the different 
technologies are different, so if there are clouds overhead, 
snow on the ground, you know, these can be issues for 
satellite-based monitoring, as well as resolution and 
sensitivity. So there are tradeoffs, some that can be overcome 
and some that cannot between--that makes this technology stack 
so important.
    Mr. Foster. And is there a rough estimate of the total 
emissions from natural sources of all kinds compared to what 
we're doing with, you know, natural gas? Is that--you know, if 
we get a factor of five reduction in what man are doing, are we 
now dominated by natural sources, what's that ratio roughly?
    Mr. Duren. It's about half-and-half natural and 
anthropogenic, and of anthropogenic, about 1/3 is fossil 
energy, including oil and gas.
    Mr. Foster. OK. And are there plausible strategies to deal 
with the natural fraction, or are those--that remains an 
unsolved problem?
    Mr. Duren. Not at the present time. Our best option is to 
reduce the things that are shovel-ready, and that's oil and gas 
emissions.
    Mr. Foster. OK. I understand. And my time is up, and I 
yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. That's great. And we're going to try Dr. 
Baird.
    Mr. Garcia for five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member, for 
this hearing. To the witnesses, thank you for your testimony.
    I got a few questions, but, Mr. Duren, I just wanted to 
clarify or have you restate, the assertion that you made 
relative to the United States being one of the--I guess the 
biggest offender of emissions, can you--not restate it. Just 
remind me of what you said there. I want to make sure I'm 
understanding you correctly.
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir, I want to be clear. That was one 
research study with satellites that exist today that cannot see 
all of the emissions down at facility-scale. So I'm not talking 
about all the emissions, but we did a study with colleagues in 
Europe that identified so-called ultra-emitters. These are 
sources that are emitting 50 tons an hour and up, and they're 
very short-lived, but they happen all over the world. And they 
are clustered in certain parts of the world. They stand out 
like wildfires. You can see them in North America, you can see 
them in Europe, you can see them in Africa, and so we have maps 
that show where the hotspots are.
    We're seeing the tip of a methane iceberg from space today. 
We can't see all of it, but what we do see with those high 
emitters is they are responsible for about 10 percent of global 
oil and gas emissions. And for that highest setting--that 
highest set of emissions, we can see very clearly where they 
are from space with satellites----
    Mr. Garcia. Are you tracking Asia and China in these 
equations, India as well?
    Mr. Duren. Yes. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Garcia. OK. And so I'm very--I'd love to--I echo Mr. 
Babin's sentiment. I would love to see that data and understand 
those assertions a little bit better because I haven't heard 
much about China in this hearing so far, and we all know that 
they are, from an emissions perspective overall, emitting more 
into the atmosphere than any other nation is, to include the 
United States. So I understand what you're saying and the 
nuances of the satellites and the imagery, but we do need to 
always keep China in the scan pattern as we're looking at root 
causes of climate change.
    In my district I represent California's 25th congressional 
District, which is northern L.A. County, and we have the worst 
natural gas leak, I think, in the history of the country, maybe 
the planet at Aliso Canyon Field. Do any of you have resources 
either deployed there in the past or currently or are looking 
to in the future to help characterize either past emissions or 
residual emissions or sort of future mitigation and sensing in 
order to trigger warnings of future leaks with Aliso Canyon? 
I'm just curious as to what is actually out there right now and 
whether or not you guys are playing in this field and what data 
you've seen.
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir, I can take that. We were heavily 
involved with the Aliso Canyon response. We continue to conduct 
research overflights for the California Resources Board. I'm 
happy to say that we don't see massive emissions there anymore.
    I also just point out that, you know, industry is taking 
positive steps. And I want to--you know, I want to acknowledge 
SoCal Gas, just provided a comment on a press release we had 
this morning about the--you know, the 2.5 million metric tons 
of CO2 equivalent reduced through voluntary action. 
And SoCal--you know, SoCal Gas is, you know, taking the lessons 
from these research studies and they've been investing their 
own measurements, and I encourage you to reach out to them and 
see what they're doing in southern California. I think it's a 
good example of what other companies can do around California 
and the rest of the United States, again, to buildup and 
operationalize that kind of monitoring.
    Mr. Garcia. Yeah, on the backside of the incident I think 
that's very true, and we're in good comms with them, and I do 
think everyone is trying to do the right thing.
    My sort of latent concern with this field is that they 
continue to use natural storage facilities. Effectively, the 
caverns are just naturally reoccurring caverns underground, and 
it's, you know, just a couple miles away from the San Andreas 
Fault line. So this--while they've done the hardening and the 
reinforcements of the valves and the pipes that were corroded 
as--you know, as root cause for this initial leak, the 
fundamental design of the storage facility is still vulnerable 
to seismic activity, and that's something that I think you 
guys' assets will help.
    The last question, the ships, you know, Ports of Los 
Angeles, Long Beach, and Port of L.A., we've got a bunch of 
ships because of supply chain challenges nationwide that are 
just sitting out there in the ocean. Some of these are oilers 
bringing oil to the United States from the Middle East. Has 
anyone characterized the impact to the environment and the 
atmosphere of these ships just sitting out on the coast, very 
dirty ships from ports of call from the Middle East and, you 
know, countries that we're dependent on oil. What do we know 
from that regard?
    Mr. Duren. That's an excellent point from an air-quality 
perspective and criteria pollutants. Without knowing more about 
who's currently sitting out there, I wouldn't want to comment 
about methane emissions, but since you raised the question, I 
will raise the point that this is an important topic to pay 
attention to as the United States increases LNG, liquefied 
natural gas exports, using ocean tankers. I think it's 
important to understand what the true methane footprint of that 
supply chain is across the ocean, which traditionally is very 
difficult to measure.
    Mr. Garcia. Yes, I'm out of time. I'll reclaim. I think 
that will pale in comparison to the footprint of CO2 
emissions emitted by ships bringing oil to the United States 
that we're dependent on. But, Mr. Chairman, I'm out of time--or 
Madam Chair, I'm out of time. I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. OK, thank you.
    And with that, we're going to hear from Mr. Beyer for five 
minutes of questions.
    Mr. Beyer. Madam Chairman, thank you very much.
    Madam Chair, earlier this year, I wrote a letter along with 
Representatives Lowenthal, DeGette, Peters, and Leger Fernandez 
to the Environmental Protection Agency commending Administrator 
Regan for proposing strong rules to reduce methane and other 
harmful air pollution from both new and existing oil and 
natural gas facilities across the country and offering comments 
on the rules. And I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter 
that letter into the record.
    Ms. Stevens. So ordered.
    Mr. Beyer. Thank you. The letter recommended that the rules 
apply comprehensively to smaller leak-prone wells that comprise 
the majority of the Nation's fleet of oil and gas wells. It 
also urges a stop to the wasteful polluting practices of 
routine flaring of associated gas and oil wells.
    Mr. Duren, scientific evidence supports the idea that a 
small number of super-emitting leaks are disproportionately 
responsible for methane emissions from oil and gas operations. 
This is just Pareto's Law applied to methane emissions. How can 
the Federal Government encourage oil and gas companies to focus 
on these opportunities for rapid emissions reductions, the 
super-emitting leaks?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. I think as we recommended--a number of 
us recommended that I think both research investments and 
improving sensors, but equally important is Federal investments 
in using agencies like NASA, NOAA, and NIST to conduct 
measurements at the larger scales to give us an idea at the end 
of the day are these regulations and industry practices having 
the intended effect? In other words, it's important to be 
looking at individual wellheads and flares with the individual 
technologies, but we also need to zoom out and look at 
emissions at the scale of basins to say ultimately is this 
working? And I think that's a really good place for the Federal 
science agencies to fit. They have a lot of capability to 
commission and do their own work and hopefully engage others, 
and I really encourage that kind of investment from this 
Committee.
    Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Dr. Rieker, the EPA's greenhouse gas 
inventory calculates methane based on estimates of what we know 
about oil and gas equipment under normal operating conditions. 
This means that it's not a tool to effectively measure the 
contributions of methane leaks to total emission but is being 
used as one. What can Congress do to incentivize the 
development and readiness of methane quantification 
technologies such as LongPath to become integrated into the 
Federal regulatory system?
    Dr. Rieker. So I think I'll answer that question right off, 
which is, as I mentioned earlier, with the number of 
technologies that are coming onto the market, there can be 
confusion about the capabilities of those technologies. And I 
think that third-party certification that is independent, 
companies should not be self-certifying themselves, is critical 
to encouraging sort of the uptake and the ability for these 
technologies to come together.
    Commenting a bit on your last question, continuous 
monitoring is that critical piece to get after these often 
intermittent and very large super-emitters, and so I think to 
the extent that the Federal Government and different policies 
can really push for higher frequency checks, that's the best 
way. If we're only seeing these facilities once every 6 months, 
there's a lot of emissions that happened during that period 
before we caught them. And so, again, that's a big gaping hole 
that sort of certification body that can help arbitrate amongst 
the technologies that are coming online very quickly. That will 
help stimulate these companies to use more and more of these 
technologies.
    Mr. Beyer. Just piling up on that, Dr. Rieker, the 
economist Thorstein Veblen said that ``Invention is the mother 
of necessity.'' Is the availability of new monitoring systems, 
these new technological developments, likely to push the 
industry to develop operational change?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes, and we're already seeing that, and it's 
fantastic. So just the same way that these companies are using, 
you know, pressure sensing and temperature sensors and flares 
to make sure that they're turned on, they're starting to see 
continuous methane monitoring as almost a check-engine light 
for these facilities. So if something goes wrong on the 
facility, there's a good chance that we're going to see 
emissions of some sort because of a disruption in that 
facility. And so that's how a lot of these companies are 
starting to use this data. They take the emissions data as a 
trigger to grab data off of all of the other sensors on their 
facilities and coming back to the earlier comments on AI to be 
able to identify a root cause more quickly. And we have many 
examples of this where we've seen it work.
    Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Mr. Duren, I only have half a minute 
left, but LIDAR technology, is there something we can do in 
Congress to really kickstart the quick incorporation of LIDAR 
for this?
    Mr. Duren. If you mean, you know, direct sensing, yes, 
there could be more work that, again, for certain applications 
it's great, particularly for searching things at night. It may 
have co-benefits for high-latitude methane as well, but it's 
not a panacea. It can't see everywhere.
    Mr. Beyer. Great. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I yield 
back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that we'll hear from Dr. 
Baird.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the 
opportunity to be with you. And it's always interesting to hear 
from experts in the field.
    And my background is agriculture, so I'm going to take a 
little jaunt off in that direction. In the fight against 
climate change, many innovative techniques--and that's what 
we've been talking about here today--continue to help American 
farmers and ranchers reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One of 
those technologies that I'm familiar with is tremendous--and it 
has tremendous potential and can be used to not only eliminate 
animal waste but also convert food--leftover food that can be 
used to produce fuels, and that's the methane digesters.
    So, Mr.--Dr. Rieker, would you please share your thoughts 
on the value of methane digesters?
    Dr. Rieker. So I--yes, I'm not going to argue. I think it's 
a highly valuable technology to the extent that we can use what 
otherwise would become waste streams to produce energy that's 
useful to us, I'm absolutely in support of that and--yes, I've 
no further comment. I think it's a good technology.
    Mr. Baird. Do any of the other witnesses have any thoughts 
on that issue, methane digesters? A lot of our producers in 
west central Indiana have been very successful at utilizing 
these.
    Mr. Duren. I totally agree, sir, that digesters, if 
properly installed and maintained, can have a significant net 
reduction, and that can generate biogas, which, you know, 
generates revenues for farmers. I do know that we've done a lot 
of work in California and Colorado doing overflights, and we 
have found that in cases where the digesters work, they 
definitely bring methane down, but there are also cases where 
they're not properly maintained where they actually generate a 
lot of methane. So the devil is in the details.
    And I think one simple recommendation I would make is if 
we're going to install digesters, we could put simple onsite 
methane monitors to make sure that they're not leaking just 
like you have a gas detector in your house, and I think that 
would go a long way to improving confidence in that technology.
    Mr. Baird. And those can be relatively effective----
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Baird [continuing]. To monitor that? Yes?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. It's a--these are fairly contained 
facilities. It's not a hard thing to monitor.
    Mr. Baird. Well, the other issue we get into, and that's 
not for this discussion, but I did want to mention that, you 
know, I think farmers and ranchers struggle with trying to find 
the support and the funding to put in those digesters. I'm not 
asking for your response on that kind of thing, but I do want 
to make that comment. I think they struggle to get sufficient 
support to install those units properly, so I'll make that--Mr. 
Anderson, you got any thoughts that you would like to share on 
the methane digesters?
    Dr. Anderson. Well, I completely agree, they're very 
useful. The devil is in the details. I think that exploring the 
other options not just in agriculture but in municipal waste 
and landfill gas, that we need some robust solutions, and it 
is, yes, farmers and ranchers but also the operators of 
landfills to ensure that we're capturing methane from all of 
the anthropogenic sources.
    Mr. Baird. Dr. Lyon?
    Dr. Lyon. No, I just concur with the other panelists. I 
think it is an important opportunity for reducing emissions.
    Mr. Baird. Wow, we've got agreement here. I mean to tell 
you, we've got a place to start. So anyway, I really appreciate 
your answers, and I think agriculture plays a role in all of 
this. And, Madam Chair, I yield back. It's my pleasure.
    Ms. Stevens. How about that? All right. And with that, 
we're going to hear from Ms. Ross for five minutes of 
questioning.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for holding 
this important hearing. And I have some prepared remarks, but 
given Dr. Baird's question and what's been going on in North 
Carolina, I want to echo his interest in ways of capturing 
other forms of methane. I represented a number of companies as 
a renewable energy lawyer before I got elected to Congress and 
did some great work on poop-to-power, which in North Carolina 
we call renewable natural gas. And I also got one of the first 
landfills licensed--got a certificate of convenience and public 
necessity for them to be able to sell their captured methane as 
a source of energy.
    I agree the devil's in the details in the technology, but 
we have some very effective and good examples in North 
Carolina. And so Dr. Baird, if you want to have some folks from 
North Carolina come and talk about how it got done, I am more 
than happy to invite them to this Committee or any other 
Committee.
    But I think this--we've been talking here particularly 
about methane that comes from natural gas extraction, and so 
I'll ask a few questions that go on with that. And as we've 
heard from most of the Members and from the witnesses, we 
obviously can't mitigate what we don't measure, and leak 
detection is an essential step toward reversing overall 
greenhouse gas emissions and achieving our climate goals. And 
so taking advantage of technological advances toward addressing 
super-and ultra-emitting leaks presents a significant 
opportunity toward rapid and significant emissions reduction.
    And I know a lot about this in North Carolina. Since we've 
shut down so many of our coal-fired plants, demand for natural 
gas in North Carolina has more than quadrupled in the past 
decade as we know it is a more reliable source of energy as we 
transition to more intermittent forms of renewable energy.
    But I want to ensure that these existing technologies are 
as clean as possible and make sure that we use this opportunity 
to see them as transitions, as providing that backup for when 
the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
    I want to ask a question of Dr. Lyon and Mr. Duren first. 
Both of your organizations are working to launch methane 
monitoring satellites so that we can get kind of a high-level 
perspective. Can you please explain how you see the unique role 
of satellites in helping mitigate oil and gas industry 
emissions and how they fit in with our suite of other 
innovative LDAR technologies and what satellite capabilities 
exist today?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can start. Yes, so I think some of the 
advantages of satellites is, first, that they can observe 
emissions in a lot of places where we don't have permission to 
fly aircraft like Russia, and their value is really 
particularly looking at more the larger-scale emissions, so 
emissions at the regional or area level, but there are 
advancements in satellites that are allowing them to see some 
of the largest point sources.
    Ms. Ross. OK. Mr. Duren?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, I would just add to it that these systems 
complement each other, so MethaneSAT is uniquely suited to 
quantifying emissions at the scale of large regions with 
exquisite precision to give us really exciting situational 
awareness. I say exciting with quotes around it, important 
situational awareness not just in the United States but 
globally, what we were talking about earlier. And Carbon Mapper 
really is focusing down at very high resolution, 30-meter scale 
with high-frequency ideally daily to weekly sampling over 90 
percent of the world's methane-emitting and CO2-
emitting infrastructure so we have that wide area of coverage 
and relatively frequent sampling. And these and other 
satellites can complement each other. We call it tip and cue 
where somebody sees a hotspot in one location and satellite B 
is tasked to follow up on it, so we really are within the next 
year or two going to be in a new world of capability. And you 
combine this with the surface measurements like LongPath and 
others and we can get there.
    I do want to point out real quickly that what--you made two 
examples, EDF and Carbon Mapper, MethaneSAT and Carbon Mapper. 
These are both philanthropically funded programs so far. There 
is no Federal funding for these programs. And so while it's 
great that the Federal agencies have robust research programs, 
the things we're talking about in this Committee and all these 
recommendations are going to need resources, and it's important 
to realize that it is a zero-sum research program. And so if 
we're going to do these things we're talking about, there will 
need to be resources for these agencies to advance them.
    Ms. Ross. Well, that was a great final pitch. And Madam 
Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we're going to hear from 
Mr. Carey for five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Carey. Madam Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to 
ask my questions. I want to make just a couple statements. 
First off, knowing the importance of natural gas in our 
economy, I think if any of us read the--read any of the trade 
rags, you realize the price of the Henry Hub for natural gas is 
almost double what it was a year ago. We all see the price of 
gasoline at the gas pump, but when you look at what it's 
actually costing our--the consumers back home, we're seeing 
that go back up. So we have to be mindful of that. We also see 
the price of natural gas as it relates to Europe, and the 
prices are much higher.
    So knowing that methane is significantly attributed with 
the natural gas market, I'm looking at one of the charts Mr. 
Duren, I think, provided that showed a tremendous amount of 
methane emissions from the Pennsylvania-Ohio area. I'm 
assuming--and I'm--this question I guess would be for you, Dr. 
Anderson, with NETL. I mean, have you guys done significant 
mapping at abandoned oil and gas wells? And what type of 
methane emissions are actually coming from those facilities?
    Dr. Anderson. Yes, and considerable to put it short. We are 
undertaking both aerial assays for identifying orphaned and 
abandoned wells. Pennsylvania because there are wells that are 
150 years old in the region, there are significant emissions in 
the Pennsylvania and Ohio region because of that from old, 
abandoned wells. Many of these wells are hard to find. They 
don't have the steel in the ground anymore. Sometimes, they 
were pulled out for the--during the Second World War. Sometimes 
the casings were taken out even earlier. So they are often hard 
to find. So we have this significant effort in mapping. We even 
have about 1,200 miles of mapping that we'll be conducting this 
year, I believe.
    Mr. Carey. And, Dr. Anderson, I mean, to that point, I 
mean, aren't there a significant amount of private companies 
that are actually out there having to plug these wells 
currently just to do the operations, whether it be coalmining 
or any type of underground mining operations? And shouldn't 
those companies somehow work in conjunction with your 
organization to make sure that that is--that the number of--
number of wells that have been plugged actually relates to the 
reduction of methane, that they are actually helping?
    Dr. Anderson. Yes, and they certainly work with the State 
agencies, so in Pennsylvania or Ohio, the Department of 
Environmental Protection at the State level and so that we--we 
work in conjunction with the State agencies as well to 
understand the plugging and abandoning programs that the 
companies have. That is to say those are for wells that are not 
orphaned. There--we have a significant number of orphaned and 
abandoned wells, somewhere between 90,000 or 150,000 orphaned 
wells across the country, and so those are wells----
    Mr. Carey. Dr. Anderson, real quickly on that point, but 
you--and I'm just--I can't remember what organization actually 
did the charts, but I--on average, how much methane actually 
comes from an abandoned well? Was that your organization or was 
that another?
    Dr. Anderson. We've done some of those assays. Some wells 
it's negligible and some wells it's considerable. I mean, it 
varies wildly. And so across the 100,000 abandoned wells, it 
spans the whole scope.
    Mr. Carey. I guess the reason I say that, it seems to me 
that if we have a--we have an ability to actually go out, plug 
these wells--and I believe the President's budget also talks 
about doing some of that. But if we had the ability to go out 
and do that now to reduce the methane and do so that is not 
going to costs the consumer any moneys but that will also 
protect the environment, I think that should be the priority, 
again, as we see the price of the Henry Hub and knowing the 
natural gas prices are continuing to climb, that's going to 
hurt the consumer. So my thing, go for the low-hanging fruit 
and let's plug these abandoned mines and work with the 
industries that are in those areas to get that done.
    Mr. Duren. The only thing I would chime in, Congressman, is 
that I think the research shows----
    Mr. Carey. Well, thank you for chiming and since I didn't 
ask the question, but thank you.
    Mr. Duren. Sorry. Sorry, sir. I was just going to 
elaborate. I do think the argument for low-hanging fruit is 
that the small number of super-emitters are really a fast way, 
they're easy to find, they're typically easy to fix. The 
abandoned wells are, I think, an entire order of magnitude 
bigger challenge because there are so many of them, they're 
hard to find, they typically emit at lower rates, and it takes 
a different focus and it takes, you know, significant resources 
to close it. And I think there is a Federal program to go after 
and close abandoned wells. I think a gap that we're trying to 
point out is there's still relatively limited programs in place 
to go after the super-emitters, and that's why some of us are 
pushing that.
    Mr. Carey. Well, thank you. Dr. Anderson, I don't have much 
more time, but I would like to follow up with you in terms of 
the studies that you guys have done on the emissions of methane 
from those abandoned oil and gas wells.
    Dr. Anderson. I can provide any information you'd like in 
the QFR (questions for the record).
    Mr. Carey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. And with that, we'll hear from Mr. Lamb for 
five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Dr. Anderson, welcome back to the Committee. It's great to 
see you again, and we're very thankful here in western 
Pennsylvania for your continued service at NETL.
    I actually wanted to stay on the issue of the abandoned 
wells just for a second. My colleague Congresswoman Bice and I 
have introduced a bill to try to help your research efforts 
along those lines. So I was wondering if you could just 
address--we expanded the amount of money available for the 
monitoring and finding of these wells. We put some of that in 
the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Could you address what that 
increase in funding has allowed as far as NETL's surveillance 
efforts in western Pennsylvania and where you see that--the 
needs of that program going when it comes to kind of continued 
surveillance or, you know, what is addressed in my bill with 
Congresswoman Bice has to do also with the prioritization of 
those wells by super-emitter status. So if you could kind of 
maybe just give us a more current update as to where your 
efforts are on that particular issue and where you could be 
going if we gave you the resources?
    Dr. Anderson. Well, Congressman Lamb, good to see you 
again, thank you as well for you and Congresswoman Bice's 
leadership on that. I think that what we are driving toward is 
doing additional surveys, more surveys with additional sensing 
technologies that can identify the orphaned and abandoned 
wells. And so we're using not only electromagnetic hardware, 
machine learning software, integrating what is gathered in the 
field, but the ability to scan large areas quickly has proven 
to be very beneficial.
    And so the increase of funding and efforts in that space is 
enabling us to go beyond just finding the wells but then doing 
risk characterization, mitigation, optimization strategies, 
using various sensors, again, laser-based, optical-based, Hi 
Flow gas sampling and compositional analysis, and then 
dovetailing into the bipartisan infrastructure law where 
there's--and within the Department of Interior that we're 
collaborating very heavily with the funding for the plugging of 
those wells where you're simultaneously characterizing where 
those are and prioritizing the heavier emitters for the 
Department of Interior. So we have an interagency effort going 
on between the two agencies.
    Mr. Lamb. If we're talking about like a 100-yard football 
field, how far down the field do you think we are on the issue 
of locating and prioritizing these emitting abandoned wells?
    Dr. Anderson. I would say given the level of uncertainty of 
anywhere--the estimates being from 90 to 150,000 wells, there--
I would say we're still at the 20 or 30--our own 20 or 30.
    Mr. Lamb. Yes. Yes. No, that's what it seems like, so we're 
going to have to sustain these efforts over time, I agree.
    Can you talk about the technological difference between 
surveying and identifying abandoned wells versus surveying and 
identifying leaks from the actual natural gas infrastructure 
system, how the technologies are similar or different?
    Dr. Anderson. Well, I think that if you're looking for the 
emission itself, the technologies are really similar, and so if 
you use the same kind of assays where you're identifying the 
leaks from existing infrastructure and you find an abandoned 
well that's emitting, that's a great find. However, given the 
breadth and distribution of those potential abandoned wells, we 
can't survey the entire landscape until we can narrow down 
where we think those wells are.
    And so as one example in western Pennsylvania we know based 
on pictures from the late 1800's that in one particular 
location we should have at least about 100 wells in some of 
that early oilfield development, and to date, we still only 
found 20 or 30 and so there's still a long way to go.
    Mr. Lamb. Yes, great. Well, thank you very much for your 
work, and we're going to continue trying to get you the tools 
you need to get this job done. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great, thank you so much. And with that, we'll 
hear from Mr. Gonzalez for five minutes.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Dr. Rieker, I'm going to start with you. As I'm sure you 
know, one of the drawbacks to satellite observations has been 
their considerable range of uncertainty and inability to apply 
to smaller emitting sources. While some progress has been made 
in the space in recent years, can you help explain how LongPath 
and similar technologies can identify leaks that today 
satellites and drones simply cannot monitor?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes. Two reasons, one, we're closer to the 
problem, so it's a challenge to, you know, measure small leaks 
from a very, very high altitude through clouds and through the 
rest of the atmosphere. So by bringing something like LongPath 
that's miles away from the emissions that it's measuring or 
point sensor technologies right next to it, that's part of the 
problem.
    The other piece is just the ability to use active sources, 
and so our system uses a laser beam. We send a laser beam out 
rather than relying on the passive backscatter of light from 
the sun and other sources, and so it just is a much, much more 
sensitive way to do things if you're closer and you're able to 
use an active light source that goes out and sends the light 
that is absorbed by the methane and look for the change as it 
comes back.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. I want to talk about the laser-
based sensor component with respect to cost. Currently, the 
gold standard is laser-based sensors but can run anywhere from 
$10,000-$100,000 per sensor. From a cost standpoint, do you 
have an estimate on the net cost to oil and gas companies that 
deploy your technology?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes, so we--great question. So, you know, again 
with the network approach that we're taking, we take that cost 
and we spread it over many, many facilities and, you know, 
13,000 acres per tower like the one that's shown in my 
background here. And so the way that we approach this is almost 
like a telecommunications model where you have a tower, it 
serves an area, and within that area customers pay a certain 
monthly fee. And that fee can be very low and probably don't 
want to put those fees on the record, but the numbers are low 
on a per-facility basis and they subscribe in for the data the 
same way you'd get your--you know, your cellular data for a 
certain number per month.
    Mr. Gonzalez. So without getting into the--I understand the 
sensitivity around, you know, quoting specific numbers, but 
without getting into the specific numbers, from a unit 
economics standpoint, is it profitable for companies to deploy 
the technology, capture the methane, and then sell it back at a 
price that covers the cost? Like is this net profit or----
    Dr. Rieker. Yes.
    Mr. Gonzalez [continuing]. Is it still underwater?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes. So we're seeing--and again, especially at 
the high prices that we're seen for gas right now, that the net 
capture is exceeding the cost to monitor.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Got it.
    Dr. Rieker. And, you know, I should also mention that a lot 
of these laser technologies nowadays, ours included, are built 
off of telecommunications laser technology. The same thing 
that's carrying broadband through our--through the pipes, so 
it's very robust and actually the costs are coming down at a 
very, very rapid rate.
    Mr. Gonzalez. What needs to happen from a pricing 
standpoint on the underlying asset to oil and gas before it 
becomes unprofitable again? You mentioned high gas--oil and gas 
prices are helping. I hope those prices go down, so----
    Dr. Rieker. Right.
    Mr. Gonzalez [continuing]. As I think everybody does, so I 
guess I'm curious how far do they have to fall before it stops 
being a good economic play?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes. So that's I think coming down to, you 
know, a few dollars per Mcf is potentially where those types of 
crossover points occur, and so that--you know, that's not a 
high price. That's the kind of prices that we would be aiming 
for. The--yes, so I--you know, again, I think that as we learn 
more and more and many companies are piloting this technology 
and I mentioned earlier it's new so everybody's learning as we 
get these technologies out there, we're going to see more and 
more adoption on economic terms.
    Mr. Gonzalez. Great. I have 40 seconds left, but I'm seeing 
that I am quite possibly wearing the ugliest jacket in the 
history of this hearing, and it's disgusting to even look at on 
this camera in front of me, so with that, I will yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. I didn't even notice the jacket.
    Mr. Gonzalez. You're too kind.
    Ms. Stevens. But with that, we're going to hear from Ms. 
Wild for five minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And to my 
colleague Mr. Gonzalez, I certainly hope your wife didn't buy 
you that jacket or least if she did, she's not watching this. 
So I didn't think it was so bad.
    Anyway, greetings, everybody. Thanks, Madam Chair, for 
holding this hearing.
    I want to direct my question to Dr. Lyon. I think it's 
notable, sir, that most of the technologies we've been 
discussing today go above and beyond anything currently 
approved by EPA for regulatory use, which I think shows that 
despite the flaws in the industry's current approach to methane 
mitigation, there are real incentives for oil and gas operators 
to do more than simple regulatory compliance in addressing 
emissions. Could you speak to why that is? Why are companies 
investing in these leak detection and repair programs that 
exceed what is actually required by EPA?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think a lot of it is due to market 
pressure, so there's been increasing demand for low methane 
emissions natural gas, and I think the public and consumers are 
getting more savvy on demanding that the performance is based 
on data, so I think a lot of the--a lot but not all companies 
are seeing that by really demonstrating they have low methane 
emissions, they'll be able to sell more product.
    Ms. Wild. OK, thanks. Dr. Rieker, do you have anything you 
want to add to that?
    Dr. Rieker. No, I agree entirely, and that's sort of a 
follow-on to our prior comments there that the capital market 
pressures, the fact that we lost out on an LNG terminal 
because, you know, the gas from the Permian was considered too 
dirty, and I think these are the types of pressures that are 
really pushing companies to try to get ahead of the curve. And 
I think to the extent that EPA and policymaking can make sure 
that it doesn't disincentive getting ahead of the curve, that's 
incredibly important.
    Ms. Wild. So when companies come to you--this is to Dr. 
Rieker--to try out your product, do they mention that kind of 
thing?
    Dr. Rieker. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely, that cost is not 
the primary concern, it's trying to do the right thing. And 
then I think as we move on, they'll start to see--as they start 
to test these technologies that there are economic benefits as 
well.
    Ms. Wild. Got it. OK. So to all of you, to the entire 
panel, can innovative methane leak detection and repair 
technologies actually help oil and gas operators reduce leaks 
in a cost-effective manner? I see some nodding heads. Anybody--
--
    Dr. Anderson. I think unanimous, yes.
    Ms. Wild. OK, great. So if we can access better data that 
helps us to pinpoint the worst offending leaks, is there a 
universe in which the burden to the industry actually decreases 
while emissions mitigation efforts improve? Anybody care to 
comment on that?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I can try. Yes, I think as the technologies 
advance and companies are better able to quantify their 
performance, there will be kind of a continuous--there will be 
driven for continuous improvement to really demonstrate that 
they're better than their peers. So I think due to the 
economics, there will be lowered costs for both the 
quantification and really the mitigation efforts, so I think, 
yes, this market pressure will drive improvements to costs.
    Ms. Wild. So, Dr. Lyon, do you believe the ESG 
(environmental, social, and governance) concerns are moving the 
oil and gas sector in this direction already?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, I think many of the companies are being 
moved, and I think there are some companies who are kind of 
falling behind, but many of the leaders are very concerned with 
the ESG issues.
    Ms. Wild. And Dr. Rieker, when you discuss deploying 
LongPath's technology with prospective clients, do they 
appreciate the potential benefits of this more effective 
science-based approach to methane mitigation?
    Dr. Rieker. Absolutely, yes. I think it takes some time, I 
think, for customers--and this is why we see so many customers 
in sort of pilot phase, you know, you're setting up a laser 3 
miles away and telling me exactly where the leak is, you know, 
it sounds a little bit like science fiction, and so they want 
these kind of pilot tests to understand this, but more 
importantly, I mentioned this before, get it--how they take 
that data and incorporate it into their operations is also new 
to these companies, and so how do we, you know, develop work 
practices for field crews to use this data to go effect that 
change, that's what everybody is working so hard on right now. 
And so I think we're going to see in late 2022 into 2023 that 
kind of an explosion of these technologies coming out into the 
field as people nail down how to do this efficiently.
    Ms. Wild. I was--my follow up question was going to be what 
concerns they expressed, but I think you nicely covered that in 
your answer, so thank you very much.
    With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. That's great. And with that, we're going to 
hear from Mr. Weber for five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Weber. Thank you, Madam Chair. In 2019, the Department 
of Energy published an analysis that found natural gas pipeline 
from Russia to Europe's electricity sector has 41 percent 
higher lifecycle emissions than American LNG shipped to Europe 
from the Gulf of Mexico, which happens to be my district, 
interestingly enough. My district on the Gulf of Mexico has 
multiple ports that are already exporting LNG, so we have the 
infrastructure ready to increase that output.
    Additionally, the International Energy Agency estimates 
that the methane intensity of oil and gas production in Russia 
is 30 percent higher than in the United States. Emissions in 
Iran are 85 percent higher for each unit of energy produced. 
And Venezuela, believe it or not, is an astronomical 652 
percent higher.
    So my question to all witnesses, do you agree or disagree 
with the calculation that increasing U.S. oil and natural gas 
exports to Europe can actually decrease greenhouse gas 
emissions in Europe?
    Dr. Anderson. Yes, I--Congressman, the report you 
referenced in 2019 came out of NETL, out of our laboratory, so 
I absolutely would say yes.
    Mr. Weber. OK, good to hear.
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, and I will add that there are regional 
differences within the United States, but I think there are 
definitely basins that are going to have oil and gas methane 
emissions that are lower than Russia and Venezuela and Iran.
    Mr. Weber. OK. Next? Mr. Duren?
    Mr. Duren. I would agree. If we keep--sir, if we keep on 
the path that we're on with these innovations that the United 
States will have and can have the cleanest oil and gas 
footprint in the world. And you're right, sir, that there a lot 
of jurisdictions around the planet that need to do better, and 
that's one way this technology can help them do better. If we 
make it all visible, then there will be market forces on those 
other jurisdictions to clean up their act as well.
    Mr. Weber. Well, it's the government forces I'm concerned 
about, but let's go with the next witness.
    Dr. Rieker. Yes, the last thing I'll say there is that 
we're seeing a lot of midstream and LNG providers that are 
starting to test technologies in order to be able to stamp 
shipments with specific kind of carbon footprint numbers, 
almost a credit score for that. That's going to be incredibly, 
incredibly important I think on the international markets.
    Mr. Weber. Who else are we missing? Is that everybody? Must 
be.
    Let me ask you this question. This is for Mr. Lyon and 
Duren. Methane monitoring satellites that compare and contrast, 
that's pretty fascinating. We can watch those countries that 
you're talking about. So those emissions--as that satellite is 
monitoring those emissions, I guess, in real time--and we'll 
stick with Mr. Lyon to start with, do those emissions move, 
waft, or travel?
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, so the methane plumes do move with the wind 
direction, but the satellite approaches can account for that, 
so they're using the wind speed and direction as they're 
quantifying emissions.
    Mr. Weber. So let's say we have emission A on today from 
Russia. The satellites--it happens at noon today. Is the 
satellite in place to watch that plume as you call it move 
across the world?
    Dr. Lyon. It depends on how the satellites are. I think Mr. 
Duren could probably speak in more detail, but yes, some of the 
satellites can be tasked for long times. Others do have orbits 
that are kind of recurring.
    Mr. Weber. How about that, Mr. Duren? What say you?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. This--actually, this background in my 
Zoom is an indication of exactly what we're talking about. 
These are methane plumes in the Permian Basin from 1 day of 
overflights with remote-sensing instruments which basically 
simulates with these satellites can do. And so when we get the 
satellites in orbit, we'll be able to track this level of 
detail on all the countries around the planet. It will be 
really clear where the--where these emissions are coming from 
and where the plumes are going.
    Mr. Weber. So we know--you know when the initial source of 
release is, how long will a plume stay together and finally not 
dissipate? I'll stick with you.
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. The one thing to know about methane 
and other greenhouse gases is they are well-mixed. That means 
within hours to days they are well-mixed in the atmosphere and 
they become diluted and they just contribute to the global 
total. So to actually figure out where that plume ends up over 
the course of weeks and months, you need complex computer 
models because at some point it just becomes part of the 
background. So very quickly they mix, typically within hours to 
days.
    Mr. Weber. So you have a pipeline--and I remember when they 
used to fly pipelines with Piper Cub airplanes looking for an 
oil leak in the ground. Of course now in real time with all the 
computers and the monitoring they have, they're so efficient 
it's really, really good. So you have a pipeline or you have a 
source of emission. Do you communicate that back to that 
source, whether it's a pipeline company or whatever the company 
is?
    Mr. Duren. That is an excellent question, sir, and it is 
complicated because there are--quite frankly, there are 
fragmented jurisdictions in the United States for who has 
responsibility over what. I have an example of where we found 
with one of our aircraft flights a leaking gathering line in 
the Denver-Julesburg Basin last summer, and it took us a few 
days to figure out who to call because it wasn't immediately 
obvious who was responsible. And that is something that we--
that could be a benefit of this research program is to help to 
build a bigger--a better data base of where is everything 
located in the United States and who owns it so you can 
expedite getting data that these aircraft and satellites see 
into the hands of the right people who can do something about 
it.
    Mr. Weber. So in essence--and I don't mean this in a 
negative way--that can be an income stream because if you're 
company ABC and you want to know about your leak as quickly as 
possible, and so if they would subscribe to your service for 
lack of a better term, then actually that would be a win-win 
for y'all and for them?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. In fact, that is a big theory of 
change beyond these rapid sensing technologies we're talking 
about is if you can get information into the hands of an 
operator within a few days or within a few hours of a leak 
springing, they can get that leak down before anybody ever 
calls [inaudible].
    Mr. Weber. Yes, well, nothing personal, but we want you to 
call them within 15 or 20 minutes.
    Mr. Duren. That's a good stretch goal. We'll shoot for it.
    Mr. Weber. Well, thank you for that, and with that, I yield 
back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that we'll hear from Mrs. 
Fletcher for five minutes of questioning.
    Mrs. Fletcher. Well, thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you 
so much for holding this really important hearing on methane 
emissions. Thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to 
testify. Your testimony both written and then here today in the 
hearing has been really useful, and certainly it's clear from 
this discussion that methane leaks are a major issue that will 
require a collaborative approach to tackle.
    As we've discussed, you know, methane accounts for about 1/
3 of global warming, and methane emissions have risen by about 
25 percent in the last 20 years. And this trajectory is 
obviously off from the decrease that's needed, two percent 
annual decrease that's needed to meet the standards that are 
set as the objective of the Paris Agreement.
    And, you know, most methane leaks are from a few major 
industries, and I think it's important to note as we talk about 
it, and part of the complexity, this isn't just an oil gas 
issue. Methane emissions arise from the agriculture sector, 
from the coal industry, from waste management. There are a lot 
of challenges here.
    And I know that this is hugely important to many of us in 
Congress to help address the issue in the oil and gas sector in 
particular. I worked with Congressman Armstrong and the 
Environmental Defense Fund to pass the REGROW Act as part of 
the bipartisan infrastructure package last November. And the 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has this provision 
included to plug abandoned oil and gas wells, investing $4.6 
billion toward cleaning up these orphaned wells, and that will 
greatly reduce methane emissions from these sources.
    As we've heard throughout the day today in this hearing, 
these new and innovative technologies really are the key to 
detecting and repairing methane leaks as quickly as possible. 
And certainly I think there's a consensus that, you know, this 
is something everyone wants to address. No one wants to see 
these leaks going forward. And so, you know, we know that's 
important, but from the statistics we've seen from last year, 
there still appear to be a lot of hurdles that prevent us from 
being where we need and want to be in terms of methane 
emissions.
    One of the things I also worked on last year in the last 
Congress was implementing the Pipeline Safety Pilot Program, 
which was included in the PIPES Act of 2020, and the language 
there really allowed for a pilot program to explore new avenues 
for deploying inspection technology in an effort to get these 
technologies deployed quicker. And that seems to be a theme 
we're hearing over and over.
    You know, unfortunately, with something like that when 
PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) 
went through the rulemaking process, it didn't really consult 
with stakeholders who would be using the program, applying for 
the program, and so I've heard from a lot of people in the 
industry that the rule as written hasn't really created a 
process they can actually use--that they can use to deploy and 
test these promising new technologies. And I think it's really 
essential that we take a collaborative approach here to solving 
the problem of methane emissions, that we work together to 
figure out from both our vantage point in terms of what can be 
done and also the people who will be doing it are all coming to 
the table to do it and make sure that these things happen as 
quickly as possible.
    So my question is really to everyone on the panel. You 
know, how can we in Congress as the policymakers and others in 
the Federal Government work more closely with stakeholders, 
folks in the industry to make sure that these technologies are 
deployed faster and more comprehensively? What are the major 
obstacles that you've observed in the deployment of these new 
technologies? I know we have a limited time left, so I would 
love to put that out there for whoever wants to take it first, 
then maybe if everyone else could also submit it in writing 
because I will probably go over the time we have left. Anyone 
want to take that first? Mr. Lyon?
    Dr. Lyon. Sure. Yes. I think the--really I think the EPA 
can play a role, so making sure that the new regulation does 
have a flexible and expedient process so that these--and 
technology-neutral process that allows a lot of these advanced 
approaches to be used in a way that it really looks forward to 
maybe some technologies that we aren't--can't even imagine now 
and making sure that those would also be allowed. So I think 
that the EPA definitely has a role to play into making sure 
that these approaches can really lead to methane mitigation 
quickly.
    Mrs. Fletcher. OK. And that was quick, so we still have 30 
seconds. Anyone else want to weigh in? Mr. Anderson?
    Dr. Anderson. I was just going to concur with that. I think 
that there's a demand-side pool that technologies are being 
developed through their portfolio. Let's make sure that the 
pathway to deployment is clear.
    Dr. Rieker. Yes, this is Greg Rieker. I would add to that 
as well. We have to just be very, very careful not to 
disincentivize the uptake of these technologies. Many of the 
quantitative technologies are letting oil and gas companies 
understand what their emissions truly are. If there is 
discrepancy between that and what sort of the subpart W, you 
know, requirements are about reporting, there needs to be some 
reconciliation there and also some kind of allowing these 
operators to--you know, to deal with that reconciliation 
without being hurt by it. And I think that's really important 
because that can be a disincentive to using quantitative 
technology.
    Mrs. Fletcher. OK. Well, thank you for that. I have gone 
over my time, but I appreciate how quickly you all were able to 
respond. And if you have any additional comments, please submit 
them for the record. I would very much appreciate it.
    And Madam Chair, with that, I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. And with that, we'll hear from Mrs. 
Bice for five minutes of questioning.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to maybe 
reiterate--Representative Lamb earlier mentioned the bill that 
we worked on together, H.R. 4270, the Abandoned Well 
Remediation Research and Development Act that would focus on 
methods and materials to better find, plug, and identify 
methane emissions on these abandoned wells. It has passed this 
Committee. It has not been presented on the floor yet, so I 
would encourage our friends to consider putting that up for a 
vote soon.
    I want to maybe piggyback off of something that Mr.--
Representative Casten said earlier. He mentioned that his 
neighbor was dumping sewage in his yard, and I think this 
analogy could be translated to energy production and emissions. 
Of the five countries with the largest methane emissions from 
their energy sectors, China, Russia, the United States, Iran, 
and India, only the United States is part of the Global Methane 
Pledge. The pledge was launched at Cop26 to try to reduce 
methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Mr. Duren, would you 
agree that we need to also focus on global reductions using 
advanced U.S. research capabilities and technologies to reduce 
global methane emissions?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, I agree. This is something--it's--global 
climate change has global in front of it for a reason. It's a 
global commons problem. And as I mentioned earlier, methane 
mixes really quickly in the atmosphere, and so wherever it 
emits, it becomes everybody's problem.
    I think that one of the problems we confront in meeting the 
objectives of the Global Methane Pledge and other climate 
programs like the Paris Agreement is that in most parts of the 
world today, we are still operating with very little 
situational awareness, very real direct data on emissions. We 
are limited to bottom-up estimates based on economic 
information and activity data, and there's a huge gap between 
what we--what's really happening and what we need to know to 
effectively manage it. And when I say we, I mean humanity writ 
large, not just one country.
    So I think this is one place where the United States and 
again the research agencies under the jurisdiction of this 
Committee can really lead, and it's U.S. science and technology 
that can shine a light on methane emissions and other 
greenhouse gas emissions globally at actionable scale so that 
people can take action everywhere and not just----
    Mrs. Bice. But I want to highlight something that you just 
said and that is there's a lot we don't know, correct? There's 
a lot we don't know about measurement, numbers, how much is 
being emitted. I mean, those are things that we are--there's a 
lot of information out there that we still don't understand or 
know.
    Mr. Duren. We know enough at the global scale and at the 
scale of individual regions to know that the methane emissions 
and CO2 emissions, what they are. What I mean by we 
don't know is we need more granular information that can drive 
direct action at facility scale. Remember that if you think 
globally but you act locally, and that's the gap right now is 
the information at the scale of individual facilities so you 
can guide improvements in management practices and fix leaks.
    Mrs. Bice. Well, I would say that, you know, the United 
States is really acting locally. We're trying to do--especially 
our oil and gas companies are trying to do the best job they 
can to limit methane emissions, but we're up against a global 
situation that is not being addressed by anyone else or very 
little is being done by those other four countries to be able 
to reduce emissions, you know, specifically China. We see their 
actually methane increasing. And that's going to be something 
that has to be addressed.
    I want to move on. Dr. Anderson, the EPA's current methane 
rule assumes that low-producing marginal well facilities have 
the same exact equipment and emissions as higher producing 
sites and therefore contribute similarly to national emissions. 
Under this assumption, the cost of compliance with the set leak 
detection and repair requirements would impact all producers 
but in particular it will affect small oil and gas operators of 
the almost 760,000 marginal wells located throughout the United 
States, many of which are in my home State of Oklahoma. So as 
of this moment limited data and broad assumptions could put 
many independent and small producers out of business. Does the 
NETL's study published in April titled ``Quantification of 
Methane Emissions for Marginal or Small Producing Oil and Gas 
Wells'' contradict EPA's assumptions on marginal wells?
    Dr. Anderson. Well, I think--so our study has a level of 
granularity based on the R&D that we've conducted in 
partnership with many of the small producers, and so I think 
that it can be used to help inform the path forward for the 
small producers, marginal wells. And we are continuing that 
research program with that particular program on quantification 
from marginal or small producing wells continues, and so we'll 
continue to publish that information and put it in the hands of 
the EPA.
    Mrs. Bice. But should we agree that marginal well 
production has a much smaller methane emission than large 
producing wells, correct?
    Dr. Anderson. For modern wells, yes, with modern 
technologies. I mean, given that they are producing less and 
the cost for abatement is disproportionate, as you had 
mentioned as well.
    Mrs. Bice. Great. My time is expired. Madam Chair, I yield 
back.
    Ms. Stevens. Thanks. And with that, we'll hear from Mr. 
Sherman for five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you. If you just watch MSNBC and Fox, 
you come away with the idea that oil production, gas production 
must be way down in the United States because the politicians 
are talking about it. The fact is that energy production in 
this country was higher in the first Biden year than in the 
last Trump year and will be the highest ever in recorded 
history next year in 2023.
    The--we--environmentalists would like to move us toward a 
fossil fuel-free future, and that makes sense to try to takes 
steps so that we burn less natural gas and oil in the United 
States. Perhaps unfortunately some of the environmental effort 
is focused on trying to get us to produce less in the United 
States, which, as some of the witnesses have pointed out, means 
you just produce more elsewhere where the environmental 
regulations surrounding the production are usually less 
stringent and the total amount of methane emitted greater.
    Mike Garcia was questioning earlier. He--his district and 
mine kind of intersect at the site of the largest natural gas 
storage blowout--not leak but blowout--in American history. As 
it happens, the emission was in his district and all the people 
affected were in my district. And so I focused on natural gas 
storage safety regulations. Which jurisdiction in the world, 
any state, any country has the strongest natural gas storage 
safety regulations? If we want to be tough, who do we pattern 
ourselves after? Does anyone know? I'll ask any of the 
witnesses. We don't have an answer.
    I'll point out that Congress has required that we have for 
the first time--before this gas blowout in Aliso Canyon we had 
no Federal regulations, that we have Federal regulations, but 
they're pretty much weak regulations patterned after the 
Petroleum Institute's recommendations.
    The--do any of our witnesses--we're dealing with the 
production of oil and gas, the transportation of the gas, and 
the storage. Are any of our witnesses in a position to put in 
context how much methane is released from those three types of 
uses of natural gas?
    Mr. Duren. I'll just comment on the results of our work. It 
varies quite a bit by jurisdiction. And also, Congressman, I 
can point you to a study we did with the California Council on 
Science and Technology a few years ago in response to the Aliso 
Canyon blowout looking at security and safety and integrity of 
underground gas storage. And it may have some answers to your 
previous question.
    But my answer is it varies quite a bit by region. In some 
places the downstream natural gas system emits more--leaks more 
methane than upstream. It depends on whether you're in a State 
that produces a lot of oil and gas as opposed to use it, so it 
varies quite a bit. And I would--I don't have a----
    Mr. Sherman. When you say--you mean the upstream is the oil 
and gas well, oil or gas well, and downstream is the 
transportation, storage, and then ultimately further 
transportation to where it's actually burned?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. If you look at natural gas in the 
United States, it varies quite a bit whether you're losing more 
of the gas in cities versus upstream and midstream production.
    Mr. Sherman. Is underground storage of natural gas in 
abandoned oil wells or salt mines a safe system? Do any of our 
witnesses have a response?
    Dr. Rieker. I can comment on that. LongPath has done, you 
know, more than a year of monitoring on a couple of different 
underground natural gas storage facilities, one in California, 
although not Aliso Canyon. You know, it's like all oil and gas 
operations, if these are properly maintained, the emissions 
rates are good. And so that's something----
    Mr. Sherman. I do want to comment about proper maintenance 
because Aliso Canyon was a disaster.
    But finally, do you have a comment on subsurface safety 
shutoff valves as being necessary for underground storage?
    Dr. Rieker. I don't have specific comment on that.
    Mr. Sherman. My time is expired. Thank you.
    Ms. Stevens. That's great. And now we'll hear from Mr. 
Perlmutter for five minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks, Madam Chair.
    Dr. Rieker, good to see you. Go Buffs.
    Professor, quick question. We had an opportunity recently 
to meet with your company out at the National Institute for 
Standards and Technology. Can you explain just in layman's 
terms for me a little bit about the Nobel Prize for laser 
technology that now sort of undergirds the company and the 
system that you've developed?
    Dr. Rieker. Absolutely, yes. This is--and this has been 
kind of the--if you will, sort of the perfect transition of 
that kind of technology up through to a commercial product. So, 
you know, in 1999 here at University of Colorado John Hall 
demonstrated a laser that would emit hundreds of thousands of 
colors of light. And actually what's interesting about these 
colors of light is they're perfectly spaced by the pulsing of 
the laser, and so actually what he was developing was an 
optical clock. And that's what NIST is of course famous for 
and, you know, the timekeeping standard.
    What's interesting is that researchers, myself included, 
could see that we could use all of these lights--all of these 
colors of light to measure the unique fingerprint, absorption 
fingerprint of the different greenhouse gases. That's why 
they're greenhouse gases, because they absorb that infrared 
light. And so this technology, that Nobel prize-winning 
technology from here in Colorado has gone on for timekeeping, 
for time transfer, you know, the eventual replacement of GPS 
(Global Positioning System) satellites with a different kind of 
time standard that's more secure, different kinds of quantum 
technologies. It's proliferated in many different directions. 
It's been very, very critical for NIST and other institutions 
like that to have the freedom to develop that technology over, 
you know, a timespan. It took a decade before we started to 
shift it toward these oil and gas operations, and then it took 
Department of Energy funding to really push it over that hill 
into what we're doing here.
    So what it comes down to is these unique tools that are 
brewing in all of our research institutions. That's the seed 
corn if you will for all these innovations we're going to see 
in the next decade, the next two decades, yes.
    Mr. Perlmutter. So--and this is to the entire panel, but, 
Dr. Rieker, I'll start with you. So in Colorado, we have some 
pretty strict methane rules that the Department of Health has 
promulgated. It seems like we are at a conjunction now where 
both sort of environmental issues, reducing greenhouse gases, 
is coupled now with profitability, potential profitability for 
these companies to not lose methane or, you know, different 
kinds of fuels or gases that they might sell. Have you seen an 
uptick in terms of the oil and gas companies in Colorado 
wanting to use yours or other types of services like this? Is 
that something you're seeing now?
    Dr. Rieker. Yes, absolutely. One of the interesting things, 
though, is that, again, this is the importance of writing the 
regulations in sort of a flexible nature. So some of the early 
kind of approaches in Colorado were fairly prescriptive, and 
that can--you know, the operators will say, well, I need to do 
this prescriptive approach. It's going to cost me a certain 
amount of money to add on and test new technologies. That's 
going to cost me additional funds. And so I think that Colorado 
with its alternative AIMM (Approved Instrument Monitoring 
Method) process, which we have an application in for that we 
can show equivalency to the standard and then be accepted to 
replace the kind of less efficient older ways of doing the--
meeting the certifications. Once we clear those hurdles, and 
with the support of the oil and gas companies that are 
supporting those applications, we'll be able to reduce their 
costs. So it's a bit of a double-edged sword. You need that 
push, but you also have to be careful that that companies are 
incentivized to make that push.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Any of the other panelists? Mr. Duren?
    Mr. Duren. Yes, I would say we're definitely seen cases all 
over the United States where some operators are, I think, 
pretty proactively acquiring and using different types of 
measurement technology, remote sensing and otherwise, with 
dramatic results in some cases. But it is--I still characterize 
it as very prototype-y if that's a word, and there's a long way 
to go to scale it up and operationalize it.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Sure. Dr. Anderson, Dr.--go ahead.
    Dr. Anderson. Yes, just quickly I would point to the--what 
is called our Nation's Energy Future ONE Coalition. There's 
about 50 member companies in the natural gas value chains, 
about 20 percent of all of our natural gas production. Those 
companies have committed to reducing their methane emissions, 
and so they're already reaching for these technologies. And 
it's a combination of ESG and our own bottom line.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Dr. Lyon, my time is expired, but you were 
shaking your head. Go ahead and answer----
    Dr. Lyon. Yes.
    Mr. Perlmutter [continuing]. And then I'll yield back.
    Dr. Lyon. Yes, no, just saying I agree with that. Yes, I 
think the companies, some of them are starting to implement it, 
and I think there will be wider-scale adoption, particularly if 
the regulations can be harmonized to use a lot of these 
technologies.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks. And I guess I'd just say, you know, 
there's a lot of activity in this space, and we need to make 
sure that whether it's NIST or the Department of Energy or the 
EPA or the States, that they're able to use a lot of this 
technology as it develops. So thank you all very much for your 
testimony today. Thanks, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. Stevens. Thanks.
    So before we bring this hearing to a close, I wanted to 
thank our witnesses one last time--oh, Stansbury is here. All 
right. Well, we were closing. Is she here? I don't see her. I 
don't see her. We're closing.
    Before we bring the hearing to a close, I want to thank our 
witnesses for testifying before the Committee today. The record 
will remain open for two weeks for additional statements from 
the Members for any additional questions the Committee may have 
of our incredible witnesses.
    The witnesses are now excused, and the hearing is 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                               Appendix I

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                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions




                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Mr. Riley Duren

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Responses by Dr. Brian Anderson

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Responses by Dr. Greg Rieker

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                              Appendix II

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                   Additional Material for the Reco

            Report submitted by Representative Haley Stevens
            
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            Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens
            
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             Letter submitted by Representative Frank Lucas
             
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              Letter submitted by Representative Don Beyer
              
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