Oil and gas operators waste more than $500 million worth of natural gas on public lands every year, according to a new report.

Chad Franke, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, said farmers, along with other members of rural communities, would benefit if operators were to capture and sell lost natural gas. He pointed out many rural counties are facing budget cuts for things like K-12 education and health care.

"These rural communities are ones that are reliant upon some of that severance tax from the wells and the minerals that are extracted," Franke noted. "And by not capturing that methane, that natural gas, that value is never captured as well. So the tax severance is never paid on that."

Roughly $63 million in state, tribal and federal revenues are lost each year through routine venting, flaring and leaks. Some oil and gas producers have balked at investing in tools to capture lost gas citing upfront costs. Others argued the costs, taken on by companies in states like Colorado which regulate emissions, are negligible once lost gas is sold at market.

Autumn Hanna, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the Biden administration has an opportunity to make all states play by the same rules. The Environmental Protection Agency is considering rules to help identify sources of methane pollution to protect public health. And the Bureau of Land Management is considering rules to push companies to capture lost gas, bring it to market, and then collect royalties to be shared with states.

"So through these two rulemakings, they can ratchet down waste and increase revenue for taxpayers, and
decrease the climate risks that are associated with all this methane pollution," Hanna contended.

The report estimated the amount of wasted gas is enough to meet the energy needs of more than two million households. Methane is at least 85 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon.

Franke believes stopping routine flaring, venting and leaks would be an important step toward mitigating the impacts of a changing climate.

"As our farmers deal with more catastrophes and more extreme weather, we need to be doing everything we can to minimize that, if possible," Franke stressed.

Electric vehicles have seen a nationwide uptick, yet Wisconsin lags behind - with EVs making up only about 1% of all cars on the road.

Misconceptions about cost, maintenance and performance are top of mind for hesitant buyers. But in Wisconsin, where about 30% of the state's population is rural, accessibility is one of the biggest concerns.

Jeremiah Brockman, chapter president of the Wisconsin Electric Vehicle Association, said he thinks it's only partly because rural areas in general are slower to catch on to some trends. He said some areas still don't have enough charging stations.

"Part of the problem, too," he said, "is you have more farmland in rural areas, and if you spend the entire day out on a farm and you're driving around your many acres of land, you worry about where you're going to charge your vehicle at that point, and I think that's another hurdle."

Compared with neighboring states, Wisconsin has significantly fewer charging stations. In an effort to help bolster the state's EV infrastructure, Wisconsin passed a law earlier this year to install a network of 65 fast-charging stations statewide. The plan is to install them every 50 miles along the interstate system and major highways through next year.

The law also makes it easier for gas stations, convenience stores and other businesses to operate vehicle charging stations. However, they'd pay a new EV charging tax beginning next year.

Even though the law was Republican-authored in Wisconsin, Brockman said he believes the political divide is another factor in electric-vehicle ownership hesitation.

"Honestly, this a part of a larger national conversation where electric vehicles are kind of being politicized," he said. "I'd like to say the benefits are there. It doesn't matter who you voted for last Tuesday, the benefits are there, no matter what."

Those benefits include lower fuel and maintenance costs, lower emissions and potential tax breaks. So far, Dane County and Madison lead the way for EV adoption in Wisconsin. As part of the mayor's climate-change policy to cut the city's emissions in half by 2030, Madison has added electric buses and recently unveiled the state's first electric garbage trucks.


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By Grace Hussain for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Commonwealth News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

The food we eat is responsible for as much as a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that comes from beef — including millions of burgers served up by fast food chains across the world. To date, fast food companies have made little progress in curbing their climate pollution, but pressure to hold these corporations accountable is beginning to come from what may seem like an unlikely group: their own shareholders. This year, fast food chains Jack in the Box and Wingstop agreed to publish their first set of measurable climate targets, led by a group called The Accountability Board.

The two-year-old nonprofit owns shares in roughly 100 publicly traded companies. Its purpose: “to hold companies accountable on issues relating to the environment, social matters and corporate governance,” says Matt Prescott. Prescott is a co-founder and one of the leaders of the organization.

How Shareholders Pressure Jack in the Box and Other Fast Food Chains

Shareholders, at least those that own a certain percentage of a company, are able to file proposals asking for action by the company that the shareholder wants to see. A growing movement of nonprofit shareholders have also used this strategy to increase corporate accountability. Kevin Chuah, PhD, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who researches stakeholder activism, explains the tactic: “They’re using the financial system infrastructure to enable them to get access to companies that they might not get access to otherwise.”

The Accountability Board focuses on the food and agriculture sector in particular, says Prescott, including industry giants like Tyson Foods and Hormel Foods. While issues like corporate governance and diversity, equity, inclusion and justice are universal across industries, food and agriculture companies are unique in their outsized impact on the environment and animal welfare, Prescott says.

Most multinational corporations have made public climate commitments, but many have failed to back them up with actionable plans for accomplishing those goals. That was the case too with Jack in the Box, Prescott tells Sentient. “They’ve got disclosures about risks posed by climate change and other environmental issues, but the company didn’t actually have measurable goals for reducing its emissions,” he says. But thanks to the newly-passed proposal, now they will.

Jack in the Box now reports scope 1 and 2 emissions — emissions the company directly emits or that are generated from the electricity or other utilities the chain uses. In the food sector however, as much as 90 percent of greenhouse gasses come from scope 3 sources, with most of those coming from meat and dairy products. Scope 3 refers to emissions that come from a company’s supply chain, which in this case, includes the very beef burgers that are a massive driver of food-related emissions.

Yet an important part of The Accountability Board’s strategy is structuring their proposals strategically to make it more likely to actually pass. The group aims to keep them general, says Prescott, in this case asking for measurable targets, but not prescribing exactly what those targets should be.

Ahead of the vote, the nonprofit’s team spent time engaging with the largest shareholders to ensure they would find the proposal appealing. When it comes to “major shareholders, like BlackRock and Vanguard Group,” says Prescott, they lean against supporting proposals “that are overly prescriptive.”

A Brief History of Shareholder Activism

Shareholder activism traces its roots back to the 1980s, when individuals or groups would acquire shares in companies in order to push for some kind of change within the corporation. At that time, shareholder activists usually sold their shares once they accomplished their goals, earning them the nickname of “corporate raiders.”

Since then, shareholder activists have managed to reform their reputation, even with corporate executives. According to Chuah, whose research focuses specifically on environmental, social and governance issues, a number of executives can point to “situations where shareholders have brought interesting information to us that we hadn’t thought about before.”

The Accountability Board doesn’t usually sell its shares, instead choosing to maintain and also grow its portfolio by acquiring stock in new companies, says Prescott. Most of the shares the organization owns were bought with an initial $11 million grant from the non-profit foundation, Open Philanthropy. Tax records indicate the group’s investments netted them $17,280 in 2022, but because The Accountability Board was formed in the latter part of that year, the figure only reflects a few months of proceeds.

For Chuah, shareholder activists are one piece of the bigger picture of change. Agitator nonprofits and religious groups are often the “innovators,” he says, the ones “who get issues onto the table and effectively bring them to the attention of the mainstream.” Next, “the institutional investors get on board.” Real progress, he says, will require both: those working within and outside of institutions.


Grace Hussain wrote this article for Sentient.

A new report highlighted the growth of Pennsylvania's methane mitigation industry, showing positive effects on the economy, job market and environment.

Pennsylvania ranks among the top five states for methane mitigation activities, accounting for 8.5% of the total employee locations in the sector nationwide.

Marcy Lowe, CEO of Datu Research, said Pennsylvania's state-level methane rules have led to a 22.2% increase in methane mitigation companies over the past three years and 65% over the past decade.

"These, by the way, are firms that are both manufacturing firms and service firms that help oil and gas operators reduce the amount of methane that escapes from their operations," Lowe pointed out. "Methane, of course, is a very potent greenhouse gas, far more potent than even CO2."

Lowe emphasized the need to prevent system leaks and alter operations to avoid venting and flaring, which release significant amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

Lowe stressed reducing methane emissions significantly improves air quality and public health, which is especially important in communities with historically poor air quality. She also noted the reduction has boosted employment opportunities in Pennsylvania, providing valuable and good-quality jobs in the methane mitigation sector.

"All the way up to computer and informational scientists that make $145,000 annual salary, to sort of the middle range," Lowe outlined. "You might have mechanical engineers making $99,000 all the way down to assemblers and fabricators making about $40,000 per year."

Lowe said they used Bureau of Labor Statistics data to understand the pay for the jobs, focusing on the median annual salary across the United States. Lowe added the number of employee locations in Pennsylvania's methane mitigation industry has grown to 50 this year, a more than 38% increase since 2021.


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