Environmental Defense Fund calls methane rule rollback a 'free pass'

Trump’s EPA rejected the method behind $98 billion in projected benefits

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said that the administration’s rollback of a methane emissions rule for oil and gas gives companies a “free pass” at the expense of American consumers. “EPA should be fighting this waste, not making it easier,” he said.

The Biden-era rule was projected to yield $98 billion in benefits by 2034. That figure came from calculating the future “social costs” of greenhouse gas emissions on public health and the environment, an approach the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency rejected.

Federal officials under Biden said the rule would prevent an estimated 58 million tons (52.6 million metric tonnes) of methane emissions by 2038 and reduce other pollutants that cause health problems.

Environmental groups said the rollback would let companies continue polluting the atmosphere with gas that could be captured and provide energy to millions of households. The Biden rule would have required operators to plug leaking methane from smaller wells that produce just 6% of the nation’s oil and gas but account for up to half of all methane emissions from oil and gas fields. Previous regulations focused only on new oil and gas wells in the U.S., while the Biden rule regulated existing wells.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration is terminating the Biden-era rule designed to cut planet-warming methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. Speaking at a campaign rally in Lubbock, Texas, for Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, Trump said Biden’s plan “crushed the small operators” with “crippling regulations.”

Trump said, “I’m officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers $45 billion in costs.” He also said the change would unlock 210 million barrels of oil, equivalent to about 10 days of U.S. petroleum consumption.

The move aims to encourage more domestic drilling as Trump faces criticism over high fuel prices amid the war in Iran.

EPA 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. The agency would also set less restrictive standards for small oil and gas wells. Zeldin has said the methane rule would have cost $18 billion and was holding back the U.S. energy industry.

The rule was announced by officials including former Vice President Kamala Harris during a 2023 U.N. climate conference in the United Arab Emirates, and the final rule was published in 2024. The EPA last year imposed an 18-month delay to give companies time to meet new inspection requirements and other provisions.

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. The fee marked the first time the U.S. government directly imposed a fee, or tax, on greenhouse gas emissions. Congress repealed it weeks after Trump took office.

The move comes as Trump and Republicans in Congress have rolled back a range of climate policies enacted under former President Joe Biden. That has included 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.

Methane is responsible for about a third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, scientists estimate. It is the main component in natural gas and far more potent to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the short term, and oil and gas operations are the largest industrial source. The invisible gas leaks from equipment and is released into the atmosphere or burned off as a waste product by oil drillers. Cuts in methane emissions have emerged in recent years as a global priority to slow the rate of climate change.

Officials also tried to rein in methane from oil and gas under former President Barack Obama, but that effort was scaled back during Trump’s first term.