President Trump said Tuesday that he is signing an order later in the evening to roll back a Biden-era rule that sought to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas drilling but curbed domestic energy production.
Mr. Trump made the announcement during a campaign rally in Texas to boost the Senate campaign of Republican Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico.
“Tonight, I am officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers $45 billion in costs, unlock vast quantities of Texas natural gas, and produce 210 million barrels of oil,” Mr. Trump said in Lubbock, his second stop of the day in the Lone Star State.
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The move is intended to ramp up domestic drilling as Mr. Trump faces criticism over high gas prices caused by the joint U.S.-Israel war against Iran. In addition to the Iran war, Ukraine has successfully attacked some of Russia’s energy infrastructure, escalating diesel prices.
However, the action won’t reduce gas prices in time for next week’s midterms, where Republicans are expected to lose control of the House and, potentially, the Senate as voters express frustration over affordability.
Methane is estimated to cause about a third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and limiting it has become a top priority of climate activists.
It is an invisible gas that leaks from equipment and is released into the atmosphere by oil drillers or burned off as a waste byproduct during crude-oil production.
The Environmental Protection Agency said last week that the methane rule, imposed by President Biden in 2023, cost America $18 billion in production and was holding back U.S. energy.
The Biden-era rule was announced during a 2023 United Nations Climate conference in the United Arab Emirates. At the time, the Biden administration said the rule would prevent an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions by 2038.
Under the rule, oil companies needed to plug leaking methane from wells that produced roughly 6% of the nation’s oil and gas. The rule was published in 2024, but it never fully went into effect because the Trump EPA imposed an 18-month delay to give companies more time to meet new inspection requirements.
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