Trump Administration Moves to Scale Back Biden-Era Methane Rules for Oil and Gas Industry

The Trump administration is proposing to sharply reduce a Biden-era rule designed to cut methane emissions from oil and gas operations at drilling sites across the country. Methane is a major driver of climate change and is estimated to be 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet over a twenty-year period.

The Biden administration finalized the rules in 2023 to rein in methane pollution from the oil and gas sector. President Trump announced the revision on Tuesday while campaigning in Lubbock, Texas. He said the change, made under the Clean Air Act, would save the industry billions of dollars in production costs and encourage more domestic drilling. The proposal arrives as Republicans face voter backlash over high gas prices heading into the midterm elections.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin framed the move as support for the industry's workforce. "Behind every barrel of oil and every cubic foot of natural gas produced in the U.S. are millions of workers, businesses, and the heartbeat of this nation's economy. The Biden EPA destructively targeted all this," Zeldin said in a press release.

The oil and gas industry, which strongly opposed the 2023 rules, welcomed the proposal as a way to address compliance difficulties. Dustin Meyer, a vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement that the group looks forward to working with the administration "on a more workable approach that supports American energy production, provides greater regulatory certainty and advances continued emissions reductions."

Environmental groups argue the rollback could end up costing the industry money. Jon Goldstein, an associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, noted that methane is the main component of natural gas. Capturing it rather than letting it leak or be flared, he said, means more product to sell, which offsets many of the costs. He added that wasted gas harms energy security and deprives taxpayers of royalty and tax revenue.

Among the provisions the EPA wants to eliminate is the Methane Super Emitter Program, which is scheduled to take effect in January 2027. Pipelines, refineries and other energy facilities sometimes suffer enormous methane leaks, but the gas is invisible and difficult and expensive to detect. The program would let the government delegate monitoring of large leaks to certified third parties, including private and nonprofit methane satellite programs.

Paasha Mahdavi, a political science professor at UC Santa Barbara who studies the oil industry, said the government needs outside help to identify violations so it can prosecute them. If the program disappears, he said, it will be harder for authorities to spot major leaks. "And we need that because it's really hard to see this stuff," he said.

The proposal would also relax rules on methane leaks from low-volume "marginal" oil wells, which are considered marginally economic because they earn little money. Goldstein said people often assume such wells produce small emissions, but satellites and new technology show otherwise. He said older wells nearing the end of their production life are responsible for "the lion's share of methane pollution" from the production sector.

The EPA plans to hold a public comment period of at least 45 days, including a public hearing, once the proposed changes are published in the Federal Register.