In May, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration released a draft regulation to prevent methane leaks from gas pipelines. The agency monetized the climate benefits of the regulation using the social cost of methane, finding that monetized benefits exceeded monetized costs by at least $340 million per year.
In our comment letter, we support the agency for applying the social cost of greenhouse gases to estimate the climate benefits of the proposed rule. We also suggest that PHMSA apply additional analysis to each rule using draft updated climate-damage valuations that the Environmental Protection Agency released in November 2022.