Trump announces proposal to loosen methane rules for oil and gas production
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President Trump announced plans to loosen methane regulations from the oil and gas sector during a Lubbock, Texas rally Tuesday night.
The announcement came during the president’s second campaign stop of the day in Texas, during which he aimed to assist the Senate campaign of Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, in the oil-heavy state. Trump told a crowd of supporters he was “officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations.”
The president added the roll back has been in the works for a “long time” with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lee Zeldin.
The proposed changes are expected to significantly loosen rules governing how the oil and gas industry treats methane, a planet-warming gas that is about 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide.
Among the changes that the administration is expected to propose are looser rules for marginal oil and gas wells, those that produce a relatively small amount of oil but are still estimated to represent about half of the sector’s methane emissions.
In addition, the administration is easing Biden-era restrictions on the industry’s burning of excess gas during oil production, a process known as flaring.
And it is eliminating the Biden administration’s Super Emitter Program requiring energy companies to respond to credible reports of major methane leaks.
A press release from the EPA outlined some additional changes including “flexibility” for deviations in monitoring data, emission control alerts and some emissions test conditions.
The agency also indicated that it would change current standards that require industry vent systems to operate with “no identifiable emissions.”
Overall, the moves are expected to exacerbate climate change but save the industry money; the administration has said that it could save the oil and gas sector $45 billion.
An official has also said the move would enable an additional 210 million barrels of oil production and 1.41 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from 2027 to 2050. The U.S. consumes about 21 million barrels of oil and 92 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, so this would mean the equivalent of about 10 days’ worth of oil and 15 days’ worth of gas.
When it tightened the regulations on methane in 2023, the Biden administration said that doing so would prevent 58 million tons of methane from entering the atmosphere between 2024 and 2038 — the climate equivalent of taking 28 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
Updated 9:16 p.m. EDT
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗ · The Hill ↗
President Trump announced plans to loosen methane regulations from the oil and gas sector during a Lubbock, Texas rally Tuesday night. The announcement came during the president's…
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
Skip to content
President Trump announced plans to loosen methane regulations from the oil and gas sector during a Lubbock, Texas rally Tuesday night.
The announcement came during the president’s second campaign stop of the day in Texas, during which he aimed to assist the Senate campaign of Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, in the oil-heavy state. Trump told a crowd of supporters he was “officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations.”
The president added the roll back has been in the works for a “long time” with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lee Zeldin.
The proposed changes are expected to significantly loosen rules governing how the oil and gas industry treats methane, a planet-warming gas that is about 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide.
Among the changes that the administration is expected to propose are looser rules for marginal oil and gas wells, those that produce a relatively small amount of oil but are still estimated to represent about half of the sector’s methane emissions.
In addition, the administration is easing Biden-era restrictions on the industry’s burning of excess gas during oil production, a process known as flaring.
And it is eliminating the Biden administration’s Super Emitter Program requiring energy companies to respond to credible reports of major methane leaks.
A press release from the EPA outlined some additional changes including “flexibility” for deviations in monitoring data, emission control alerts and some emissions test conditions.
The agency also indicated that it would change current standards that require industry vent systems to operate with “no identifiable emissions.”
Overall, the moves are expected to exacerbate climate change but save the industry money; the administration has said that it could save the oil and gas sector $45 billion.
An official has also said the move would enable an additional 210 million barrels of oil production and 1.41 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from 2027 to 2050. The U.S. consumes about 21 million barrels of oil and 92 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, so this would mean the equivalent of about 10 days’ worth of oil and 15 days’ worth of gas.
When it tightened the regulations on methane in 2023, the Biden administration said that doing so would prevent 58 million tons of methane from entering the atmosphere between 2024 and 2038 — the climate equivalent of taking 28 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
Updated 9:16 p.m. EDT
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗ · The Hill ↗
Skip to content
President Trump announced plans to loosen methane regulations from the oil and gas sector during a Lubbock, Texas rally Tuesday night.
The announcement came during the president’s second campaign stop of the day in Texas, during which he aimed to assist the Senate campaign of Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, in the oil-heavy state. Trump told a crowd of supporters he was “officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations.”
The president added the roll back has been in the works for a “long time” with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lee Zeldin.
The proposed changes are expected to significantly loosen rules governing how the oil and gas industry treats methane, a planet-warming gas that is about 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide.
Among the changes that the administration is expected to propose are looser rules for marginal oil and gas wells, those that produce a relatively small amount of oil but are still estimated to represent about half of the sector’s methane emissions.
In addition, the administration is easing Biden-era restrictions on the industry’s burning of excess gas during oil production, a process known as flaring.
And it is eliminating the Biden administration’s Super Emitter Program requiring energy companies to respond to credible reports of major methane leaks.
A press release from the EPA outlined some additional changes including “flexibility” for deviations in monitoring data, emission control alerts and some emissions test conditions.
The agency also indicated that it would change current standards that require industry vent systems to operate with “no identifiable emissions.”
Overall, the moves are expected to exacerbate climate change but save the industry money; the administration has said that it could save the oil and gas sector $45 billion.
An official has also said the move would enable an additional 210 million barrels of oil production and 1.41 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from 2027 to 2050. The U.S. consumes about 21 million barrels of oil and 92 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, so this would mean the equivalent of about 10 days’ worth of oil and 15 days’ worth of gas.
When it tightened the regulations on methane in 2023, the Biden administration said that doing so would prevent 58 million tons of methane from entering the atmosphere between 2024 and 2038 — the climate equivalent of taking 28 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
Updated 9:16 p.m. EDT
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗ · The Hill ↗
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
- President Trump announced plans to loosen methane regulations from the oil and gas sector during a Lubbock, Texas rally Tuesday night.
- The announcement came during the president's…