Trump Plans to Roll Back Methane Emissions Rule

President Donald Trump is scheduled to announce plans Tuesday to loosen a Biden-era rule designed to reduce planet-warming methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. The announcement is expected during a campaign event in Texas, according to an administration official speaking on condition of anonymity. The move appears intended to boost domestic drilling amid criticism over high fuel prices. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, responsible for approximately one-third of global warming emissions, scientists estimate. Its reduction has become a global priority for slowing climate change. Oil and gas operations are the largest industrial source of methane, which is the primary component of natural gas and significantly more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term. Methane escapes from equipment and is released into the atmosphere or burned off as a waste product during crude oil production. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin previously indicated that the proposed changes would eliminate the EPA's “Super Emitter Program,” which mandates that companies investigate and repair significant methane leaks from oil and natural gas facilities. The agency would also implement less stringent standards for smaller oil and gas wells. This deregulation effort aligns with a broader pattern of the Trump administration dismantling environmental policies enacted under former President Joe Biden. Previous actions included revoking a key scientific finding on greenhouse gas emissions, lowering fuel economy standards for vehicles, and moving to repeal emission restrictions for coal and natural gas power plants. Environmental organizations have voiced strong opposition to the rollback. Max Lopez, an attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center, stated that the deregulation “will impose a heavier pollution burden on our front-line communities and make our energy sector less efficient.” Zeldin, however, argued that the Biden methane rule would have cost $18 billion and hindered the U.S. energy industry, asserting the EPA's commitment to maximizing the nation's energy potential. The Biden administration's methane rule, announced during a 2023 U.N. climate conference, aimed to prevent an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions by 2038 and reduce co-pollutants impacting public health. Officials projected the rule would yield $98 billion in benefits by 2034, calculated using the future social costs of greenhouse gas emissions on public health and the environment—an approach rejected by the Trump EPA. Unlike previous regulations that focused solely on new wells, the Biden rule encompassed existing wells. It also required operators to plug methane leaks from smaller wells, which, while producing only 6% of the nation's oil and gas, accounted for up to half of all methane emissions from oil and gas fields. The final rule was published in 2024 but had not yet gone into full effect, with the EPA having imposed an 18-month delay to allow companies time to comply with new inspection requirements and other provisions. The rule was designed to work in tandem with a methane fee approved in the 2022 climate law, which levied a charge on energy producers exceeding certain methane emission thresholds. This fee marked the first instance of the U.S. government directly imposing a fee on greenhouse gas emissions, though it was repealed by Congress shortly after Trump took office. Efforts to regulate methane from oil and gas operations were also pursued under former President Barack Obama but were scaled back during Trump's first term.