The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a rollback of methane regulations that could make it harder to detect and address large methane leaks. Methane is an invisible gas that haunts the air we breathe, and critics have described the changes as a “trick” that benefits polluters at the expense of the public. President Trump’s claim at the Lubbock rally on October 27 that he was “officially terminating” the Biden-era methane rules was an overstatement; EPA has only issued a proposal, and the 2024 standards remain in effect during the notice-and-comment period.
EPA proposes to rescind the Methane Super Emitter Program, which allows independent parties to use satellites, aircraft, and mobile sensors to detect methane releases of 100 kilograms per hour or more. EPA verifies each report, notifies the operator, and posts the event publicly; the operator then has to investigate and, where required, repair the leak.
Methane Regulation and the Clean Air Act
EPA proposes that the Clean Air Act does not authorize it to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, while still invoking the same statute to regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. Six weeks earlier, EPA proposed that Section 111 does not authorize regulation of power-plant greenhouse gases, reasoning those emissions cannot meaningfully affect global climate and thus do not “contribute significantly” to dangerous air pollution.
States and environmental groups have highlighted this inconsistency, noting that they have already sued over the agency’s proposal to repeal power-plant rules. The power-plant theory relies on the idea that individual sources have only a marginal effect on global climate change, a rationale that does not translate to the oil and gas industry, which has a distinct regulatory history.
Nevertheless, the oil-and-gas proposal still invokes Section 111 to regulate methane in a “Climate Review,” deferring to the sector’s “own regulatory history” and even seeking comment on ending methane regulation for oil and gas. In 2016, the EPA added methane standards to the oil and gas industry, and in 2021 Congress used the Congressional Review Act to disapprove a rule that would have rescinded those standards. Those actions suggest that lawmakers expect the oil and gas sector to remain under federal oversight, and the current proposal to scale back those rules may represent a departure from that expectation.
Industry Influence and Regulatory Rollback
The oil and gas sector is not a single monolith; some large producers have actually supported federal methane regulation. However, operators of low-producing wells have led the opposition. The agency’s move to rescind the Super Emitter Program may be seen as accommodating operators of low-producing wells, which lead the opposition to federal methane regulation. The proposal was previewed at a closed-door meeting with the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and later unveiled at a rally for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has led legal challenges against methane rules. Oil executives, including some of the President’s top donors, pressed for exactly this result.
The pattern extends well beyond this rule: In Suncor v. Boulder County, oil companies are asking the Supreme Court to shield them from state-law claims that they knowingly contributed to climate change while concealing the risks, and the Justice Department has argued on their side. EPA’s proposal to scale back its broader Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program points the same way, and the agency just pushed this year’s reporting deadline to March 2027.
Satellite monitoring, litigation discovery, and public disclosure generate exactly the evidence that regulators, courts, and communities leverage. These are not separate technical fixes but a coordinated retreat from accountability for climate pollution, driven by industry and championed by the officials charged with protecting the public.