[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 31 (Monday, August 2, 2004)]
[Pages 1381-1382]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on the Methane to Markets Partnership

July 28, 2004

    Today the United States and several major international partners are 
forming the Methane to Markets Partnership, a new and innovative program 
to increase energy security, improve environmental quality, and reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions throughout the world. The United States will 
commit up to $53 million to the Partnership over the next 5 years. To 
date, Australia, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Ukraine, and the United 
Kingdom have agreed to participate as founding partners, along with the 
United States.

[[Page 1382]]

    Under the Partnership, members will work in coordination with the 
private sector to share and expand the use of technologies to capture 
methane emissions that are now wasted in the course of industrial 
processes and use them as a new energy source. The important benefits of 
this international partnership include improved energy security and air 
quality from the use of clean-burning methane as natural gas, improved 
coal mine safety, enhanced economic growth, and reduced greenhouse gas 
emissions of methane. The Partnership will be led by Environmental 
Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt, working closely with the 
Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the United States 
Agency for International Development. Administrator Leavitt will host a 
ministerial-level meeting of the founding international partners later 
this year. I look forward to working closely with our international 
partners to achieve the Partnership's important goals.