Five things you need to know about the Trump administration’s rollback of methane regulations
Scientific American · Stephanie Pappas ·
The gas is a major driver of climate change
The Trump administration has taken an axe to environmental regulations—and this week the target became methane gas emissions.
The White House plans to slash laws governing how much methane is emitted from oil and gas wells. This includes relaxing rules around flaring—or burning off excess natural gas at well sites—as well as doing away with a program that requires speedy fixes for large methane leaks. The move also lowers standards for marginal wells, which produce little oil and gas but are responsible for about half of the industry’s methane emissions.
It’s the latest bump in a regulator roller coaster for methane. Attempts to regulate emissions on a federal level began in 2015, when the Obama administration sought to bring methane under the Clean Air Act. The first Trump administration rolled back that rule change. Then, during the Biden administration, the then Democratic-controlled Congress reinstated the methane regulations and cleared the way for the Environmental Protection Agency to apply the new standards to older equipment. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act also included provisions for charges for heavy emitters and allocated money for both industry and research to help them comply with the rules.
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