HARTFORD — Today, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) released the following statement after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced proposed standards to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas industry. The proposal comes after Murphy and 14 other senators called on the administration to take swift action to limit methane pollution from oil and natural production, and is a part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 percent by 2025.

Natural gas is primarily composed of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a warming potential more than twenty-five times greater than carbon dioxide. Last year, Murphy introduced the Super Pollutants Act of 2014, a bipartisan climate bill which aims to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants like methane.

“Establishing national standards to reduce methane pollution from oil and gas production is a critical step forward in the fight against climate change. Today, the oil and gas sector is the United States’ largest industrial emitter of methane, polluting our atmosphere, wasting energy, and threatening the public’s health,” said Murphy. “I applaud the EPA for using its authority to address this threat and I look forward to building on their progress by targeting methane and other dangerous pollutants like hydrofluorocarbons through my bipartisan Super Pollutants Act. Enforcing federal standards will go a long way towards reducing our most harmful greenhouse gas emissions, and will help deliver measurable results for our environment and promote meaningful action on climate change around the world.”