Industry, environmentalists split over EPA methane rollback costs

Plan would cut Super Emitter monitoring, ease marginal well rules

The American Petroleum Institute, a trade organization for the U.S. oil and gas industry, said the EPA’s proposed rollback would address some of the challenges companies have faced in trying to comply with the regulations. The Environmental Defense Fund offered a different assessment, saying the change may end up actually costing the industry more.

President Trump announced the proposal Tuesday while campaigning in Lubbock, Texas, saying his administration’s revision, under the Clean Air Act, would save the industry billions in production costs and spur more domestic drilling. The proposal comes as Republicans face a backlash from voters over high gas prices heading into the midterms. Methane is a major contributor to climate change and is estimated to be 80 times more planet-warming than carbon dioxide in a twenty-year time frame. In 2023, the Biden administration finalized rules that were meant to rein in methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said 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.”

The oil and gas industry vigorously opposed the 2023 rules. Dustin Meyer, vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement, “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.”

Jon Goldstein, associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “Methane is natural gas, or natural gas is methane.” Goldstein said capturing more natural gas would keep it from leaking or being flared and give operators more product to sell, offsetting a lot of the costs. “That is harmful to our energy security, and it’s harmful to taxpayers that ought to be seeing royalty and tax revenue collected off of this gas that’s going to waste,” Goldstein added.

One regulation the EPA wants to cut is the Methane Super Emitter Program. Across the U.S., oil and gas pipelines, refineries and other energy facilities sometimes have huge methane leaks. But methane is invisible and difficult, not to mention expensive, to detect. The program is scheduled to take effect in January 2027 and would allow the government to delegate monitoring for big methane 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 easiest way to think about it is that if the government is alerted to a big leak, then if it’s reported by certified third parties, then they could use that information.” Mahdavi said the government needs help from other people to flag violations, “so they’re able to prosecute.” If the program goes away, he said, it will be harder for the government to spot large leaks of the planet-heating gas from oil and gas facilities. “And we need that because it’s really hard to see this stuff,” Mahdavi said.

The EPA’s announcement would also loosen regulations on methane leaks from low-volume “marginal” oil wells that are considered “marginally economic,” meaning they do not make much money. Goldstein said, “People assume marginal well must equal small emissions,” but he said satellites and new technology find that is not true. “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,” Goldstein said.

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