US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration is ending a rule introduced under former President Joe Biden aimed at reducing methane emissions from oil and gas drilling.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Texas, Trump said the move would save companies and consumers billions of dollars and unlock 210 million barrels of oil, equivalent to about 10 days of US petroleum consumption.
The move is intended to encourage more domestic drilling as Trump faces criticism over high fuel prices amid the war in Iran.
Methane accounts for about one-third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to scientists.
Reducing methane emissions has become a global priority in recent years to slow climate change. Oil and gas operations are the largest industrial source of methane, the main component of natural gas, which has a much stronger warming effect than carbon dioxide over the short term.
The invisible gas can leak from equipment into the atmosphere or be burned off as waste during oil drilling operations.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin outlined the planned changes last month, saying they would eliminate the agency's “Super Emitter Program,” which requires companies to investigate and repair major methane leaks from oil and natural gas facilities. The agency would also introduce less stringent standards for smaller oil and gas wells.
At Tuesday's rally in Lubbock, Texas, for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, Trump said Biden's regulations had severely affected small operators.
“I'm officially terminating Biden's expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers $45 billion in costs,” Trump said.
The rollback comes as Trump and congressional Republicans continue to dismantle climate policies introduced under Biden. Their actions have included revoking a scientific finding that served as the basis for US action on greenhouse gas emissions, lowering vehicle fuel economy standards and moving to repeal emissions restrictions on coal- and natural gas-fired power plants.
Environmental groups said the latest move would allow companies to continue releasing methane into the atmosphere instead of capturing the gas, which could provide energy to millions of households.
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the decision gives companies a “free pass” at the expense of American consumers.
“EPA should be fighting this waste, not making it easier,” he said.
Zeldin has argued that the methane rule would have cost $18 billion and held back the US energy industry.
The Biden administration announced the rule in 2023 during a UN climate conference in the United Arab Emirates, with former Vice President Kamala Harris among the officials involved.
Federal officials under Biden estimated that the rule would prevent 58 million tons (52.6 million metric tonnes) of methane emissions by 2038 while reducing other pollutants harmful to human health.
The rule was projected to generate $98 billion in benefits by 2034. The estimate was based on the future social costs of greenhouse gas emissions to public health and the environment, an approach rejected by Trump's EPA.
Previous federal regulations covered only new oil and gas wells, while the Biden-era rule also applied to existing wells. Operators would have been required to identify and repair methane leaks from smaller wells, which account for just 6% of the country's oil and gas production but contribute up to half of methane emissions from oil and gas fields.
The final rule was published in 2024. Last year, the EPA delayed its implementation by 18 months to give companies more time to comply with new inspection requirements and other provisions.
The rule was designed to work alongside a methane fee established under the 2022 climate law. The programme would have imposed a “waste emissions charge” of up to $1,500 per metric tonne of methane on energy producers whose emissions exceeded a specified threshold.
The fee marked the first time the US government directly imposed a charge or tax on greenhouse gas emissions. Congress repealed it weeks after Trump took office.
The administration of former President Barack Obama had also sought to curb methane emissions from oil and gas operations, but those efforts were scaled back during Trump's first term.