Small wells would face less restrictive standards; Zeldin cited an $18 billion cost
President Donald Trump is expected to announce plans Tuesday to loosen a Biden-era rule aimed at reducing methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin previewed the changes last month, saying they would eliminate the agency’s “Super Emitter Program,” which requires companies to investigate and repair major methane releases from oil and natural gas facilities, and that the agency would set less restrictive standards for small oil and gas wells. Trump was to deliver the announcement while campaigning in Texas, according to an administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record ahead of the official announcement. The move aims to encourage more domestic drilling as Trump faces criticism over high fuel prices amid the U.S. war in Iran.
The 2024 rule being revised was published but never went into effect. The EPA imposed an 18-month delay last year to give companies time to meet new inspection requirements and other provisions.
Methane is responsible for about a third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, scientists estimate. Methane is the main component of natural gas and is far more potent to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the short term. Oil and gas operations are the largest industrial source of methane, and cuts in methane emissions have emerged as a global priority to slow the rate of climate change. Leaking equipment can release the invisible gas into the atmosphere, and oil drillers sometimes release or burn it off as a waste byproduct during crude production.
Zeldin has said the methane rule would have cost $18 billion and was holding back the U.S. energy industry. “The Trump EPA is committed to fixing this so the U.S. can reach its full energy potential,” he said last month.
Environmental groups criticized the latest rollback. “It will impose a heavier pollution burden on our front-line communities and make our energy sector less efficient,” said Max Lopez, an Environmental Law & Policy Center attorney.
The Biden methane rule was announced by officials including former Vice President Kamala Harris during a 2023 U.N. climate conference in the United Arab Emirates. Federal officials under Biden said it would prevent an estimated 58 million tons (52.6 million metric tonnes) of methane emissions by 2038. Previous EPA regulations focused only on new oil and gas wells in the United States, while the Biden rule also regulated existing wells. Operators would have needed to plug leaking methane from smaller wells that produce just 6% of the nation’s oil and gas while accounting for up to half of all methane emissions from oil and gas fields.
The announcement comes as Trump and Republicans in Congress have taken steps against climate policies enacted under former President Joe Biden. Those actions include the revocation of a scientific finding that was central to U.S. action on greenhouse gas emissions, lower fuel economy standards for vehicles and a move to repeal emission restrictions for coal and natural gas power plants.
The rule was crafted to be coordinated with a methane fee, approved in the 2022 climate law. The fee program would have levied a “waste emissions charge” of as much as $1,500 per metric ton of methane on energy producers that exceed a certain level of methane emissions. It marked the first time the U.S. government directly imposed a fee, or tax, on greenhouse gas emissions. Congress repealed the fee weeks after Trump took office. As the EPA prepares to revise the rule, neither the 2024 methane rule nor the waste-emissions charge is in effect.