President Donald Trump says his administration is “terminating” a Biden-era rule designed to curb methane leaking from oil and gas operations — a move he pitched as a money-saver for drillers and drivers alike, as Matthew Brown reports for the Associated Press.
Speaking on October 27, 2026, at a Lubbock, Texas, rally for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, Trump said the rule “crushed the small operators.” “I’m officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers $45 billion in costs,” he said, adding that the change would unlock 210 million barrels of oil. That’s roughly 10 days of U.S. petroleum consumption.
The rollback arrives as Trump faces criticism over high fuel prices amid the war in Iran. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin previewed the plan last month: it scraps the agency’s “Super Emitter Program,” which requires companies to investigate and fix major methane releases, and loosens standards for small wells. Zeldin pegged the rule’s cost at $18 billion.
The climate stakes are significant. Scientists estimate methane drives about a third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and oil and gas operations are its largest industrial source. In the short term, the invisible gas is far more potent than carbon dioxide.
Finalized in 2024, the Biden rule was the first to target existing wells, including small wells that produce just 6% of the nation’s oil and gas but account for up to half of oil-field methane emissions. Officials projected it would prevent 58 million tons of methane by 2038 and yield $98 billion in benefits by 2034 — a figure built on “social cost” calculations that Trump’s EPA rejects.
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Environmental groups argue the leaking gas could instead be captured to power millions of homes. Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the rollback hands companies a “free pass” at consumers’ expense. “EPA should be fighting this waste, not making it easier,” he said.
