Trump says government to ‘terminate’ Biden-era methane emissions rules

Trump says government to ‘terminate’ Biden-era methane emissions rules Critics warn of climate danger as president in Texas claims change will save companies and consumers billions

Donald Trump said his administration is “terminating” Biden-era regulations holding oil and gas companies accountable for large leaks of planet-warming methane during a rally in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday evening.

“Tonight, I’m officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers,” Trump said, lifting what he called “crippling regulations on methane that caused prices to skyrocket” for small oil and gas operators. The change would save consumers and energy producers $45bn and unlock 210m barrels of oil, he said, which is equivalent to about 10 days of US petroleum consumption.

In a press release , the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Lee Zeldin, praised what he called Trump’s move “to end the war on oil and natural gas” by revising oil and natural gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. The proposal is expected to produce an estimated 210m additional barrels of oil and 1.41tn cubic ft of natural gas, according to the EPA.

The EPA’s proposal violates the Clean Air Act’s duty to protect public health and welfare and would seriously harm communities near oil and gas development, as well as the wider public, said Darin Schroeder, the methane legal and regulatory director at Clean Air Task Force (CATF). “EPA’s crusade against limits for emissions scientifically proven to harm public health and the environment must stop, and the agency must rescind this unlawful proposal and implement the 2024 rule without delay.”

Curbing pollution from the oil and gas industry is critical to protecting public health, said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association. “This not only carries environmental consequences, but leaks can also release harmful pollutants like volatile organic compounds that worsen air quality and carcinogens like benzene and formaldehyde,” he said. “If finalized, this proposal would help polluting industries avoid cleanup and harm the communities who bear the brunt of dirtier air and a warming planet.”

At a Trump rally in Corpus Christi earlier in the day, Trump shouted out Harold Hamm , saying the founder of Continental Resources was in the audience. In April, Continental Resources wrote a letter to the EPA pushing back against measures in the methane rule that prohibit routine flaring of associated gas.

Although some oil and gas executives spoke publicly in favor of the landmark methane rule , industry trade groups and corporations worked behind the scenes to gut the methane regulations, according to trade association materials and records obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by Fieldnotes , an oil and gas watchdog organization.