Methane

So, I only recently learned that methane is 85% of the fairly clean burning fuel we call natural gas. I don't know why I never heard that before.  And methane the most damaging of the green house gases (which I did know) so apparently we are better off burning it for energy.

And thanks to mining and drilling disasters. I've observed that it just gets released into the atmosphere in all our carbon fuel extracting activities like coal mining and oil drilling. Not to mention by decomposing plant products and animal waste and the outrageous number of cattle we raise. And yet we do nothing to capture all that. 

Why would a coal mine just vent the methane into the atmosphere when there's money to be made from it?  Why wouldn't natural gas companies make deals with the coal, oil and waste management companies?  Why would they rather pump millions of gallons of water into the earth to extract shale gas and let the toxic water seep into our water system?

If we are better off burning it for fuel than letting it get released into the atmosphere, then it should be the law that it be captured.