Trump says US will terminate Biden-era methane leak rules for oil and gas
At a Tuesday evening rally in Lubbock, Texas, Donald Trump said his administration is terminating Biden-era methane rules that required oil and gas operators to stop large leaks. He claimed the change would save consumers and energy producers $45bn and unlock 210 million barrels of oil—about 10 days of U.S. petroleum use—while lifting what he called crippling methane rules that had driven costs up for small operators. The Environmental Protection Agency, whose administrator Lee Zeldin praised a move to “end the war on oil and natural gas” by revising Clean Air Act oil and gas rules, said the proposal should also yield about 1.41 trillion cubic feet of extra natural gas, including for businesses running marginal wells. The announcement comes as Trump faces criticism over high fuel prices tied to the U.S. war in Iran and seeks more domestic drilling.
The 2024 rule was the first nationwide federal limit on methane from existing oil and gas sites; a 2016 Obama-era rule covered only new and modified sources. Operators had to cut leaking, flaring and venting of methane and health-harming volatile organic compounds, and under a super-emitter program investigate major leaks found by third parties using EPA-approved remote sensing. Last year the U.S. oil and gas sector emitted more methane than that of any other country; methane accounts for at least a quarter of current warming.
In March 2025 Zeldin said the EPA was reconsidering the Biden-Harris rules and would no longer enforce oil and gas regulations; the Environmental Defense Fund calculates operators have since leaked, vented or flared $7bn worth of natural gas. Fieldnotes, citing FOIA records, says industry groups met EPA at least 38 times in the administration’s first year. Julia Kane of Fieldnotes argued firms got the access they wanted; Independent Petroleum Association of America executive Lee Fuller described EPA staff as newly willing to discuss long-sought changes. At a Corpus Christi rally Trump named Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm in the crowd; in April the company wrote EPA opposing a ban on routine flaring of associated gas. EDF’s Rosalie Winn said the administration is letting the worst polluters profit while wasting energy.
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