EPA proposes cuts to methane rules

Methane traps heat in the atmosphere at a rate roughly 80 times higher than carbon dioxide over a twenty-year period. The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it intends to scale back regulations designed to limit this potent greenhouse gas from the oil and gas sector.

The proposal was unveiled by President Trump during a campaign stop in Lubbock, Texas. He stated that the changes, made under the Clean Air Act, would save the industry billions of dollars in production costs and encourage more domestic drilling. This move coincides with Republican efforts to address voter concerns about high gas prices ahead of midterm elections.

The current regulations were finalized by the Biden administration in 2023. They required oil and gas companies to implement specific measures to capture and reduce methane leaks at drilling sites, pipelines, and refineries nationwide. Industry leaders had long opposed the 2023 rules, arguing that compliance was costly and complex.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin defended the new approach in a press release. "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. The American Petroleum Institute also supported the rollback. "We look forward to working with the Trump administration on a more workable approach that supports American energy production, provides greater regulatory certainty and advances continued emissions reductions," said Dustin Meyer, the organization's vice president.

Environmental groups argue that the rollback may increase costs for the industry. Jon Goldstein, associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, noted that methane is a primary component of natural gas. "If you're capturing more natural gas, you're not allowing it to leak out, you're not allowing it to be flared, you have more product that you can sell. And so that offsets a lot of the costs," Goldstein explained. He added that losing this product is harmful to energy security and reduces tax revenue for taxpayers.

A key part of the proposed changes involves the Methane Super Emitter Program, which is scheduled to begin in January 2027. This program allows the government to hire certified third parties, including private satellite firms, to monitor and report large leaks. Paasha Mahdavi, a political science professor at UC Santa Barbara, explained that the government often struggles to detect invisible methane leaks on its own. "[The government] needs help from other people to say, 'Hey! You're breaking the law!' so they're able to prosecute," Mahdavi said. He warned that without this assistance, it will be harder to identify and address major leaks.

The proposal also targets regulations concerning low-volume wells known as marginal wells. These sites are near the end of their economic life. Goldstein countered the common assumption that these wells produce small emissions. "These old sort of end-of-life wells nearing the end of their production life are actually responsible for the lion's share of methane pollution from the [oil and gas] production sector," he said. The EPA plans to hold a public hearing and open a comment period of at least 45 days once the changes appear in the Federal Register.