The Trump administration plans to announce a proposal Tuesday to roll back Biden-era regulations on emissions from the oil and gas industry.
The proposal would overhaul regulations meant to reduce emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide, and other pollution from oil and gas operations.
A draft of the EPA’s proposed rule reviewed by The Washington Sun shows the agency plans to rescind a “super-emitter” program that the Biden administration created to find large methane leaks and releases and would have required operators to investigate and repair them according to federal standards.
President Donald Trump plans to announce the plan during a campaign rally in Lubbock, Texas, Bloomberg first reported, as he aims to boost Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s campaign ahead of the midterms next week.
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The proposal would be the latest move in a string of efforts to scrap limits on climate-warming pollution. This fall, Trump has moved to reduce fuel efficiency standards and has gutted regulations on emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants.
Relaxing emissions rules for the oil and gas industry was an early focus for the administration. In early 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would reconsider the Biden-era regulations that would have cut methane pollution from the sector by 80%.
The Trump administration has framed the rollbacks as a way to address “widespread concerns” from American energy producers that the Biden-era rules were unworkable. In a news release teasing the proposal, the EPA said those regulations “posed a monumental threat” to the energy industry.
According to the draft summary, EPA officials are also proposing to reduce requirements for a category of oil wells that are responsible for about half of the sector’s methane emissions. That category — which the proposal refers to as “marginal” wells — refers to wells that produce 15 barrels of oil a day or less and account for little of the industry’s total production.
ProPublica reported last month that the EPA plans to weaken requirements for leak inspections and equipment upgrades at low-producing wells. Aaron Szabo, who led the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks at the EPA, formerly lobbied for a company that bought those kinds of wells. Szabo resigned from the agency earlier this month.
Zealan Hoover, a former EPA senior advisor for the Biden administration, said the proposal would put the cost of corporate pollution on communities.
“The Trump administration is once again putting the interests of oil and gas companies ahead of the American people by rolling back protections that require companies to find and fix gas leaks. Leaky oil and gas operations accelerate climate change and contribute to pollution that harms our lungs and cardiovascular health,” he said in a statement.
The Trump administration says the changes they’re proposing should save $45 billion. Those benefits could come from lower compliance costs for the oil and gas industry, lower commodity prices for consumers, and increased fuel production.
EPA officials under Biden said the stricter emissions rules would have led to roughly $97 billion in net climate and ozone health benefits.
Stopping methane emissions also would have allowed oil and gas companies to recover that resource, which is the main component of natural gas. Recovery of that gas would have increased oil and gas revenue by more than $1 billion a year between 2028 and 2038, according to the Biden administration’s analysis.
The Environmental Defense Fund said the Trump administration’s move to roll back the standards would lead to “more wasted energy” and greater health risks from pollution.
“At a time when Americans are facing high energy costs, EPA should not give oil and gas companies more room to waste a domestic resource, adding to the nearly $7 billion in lost energy value since the Administration stopped enforcing key methane protections,” the nonprofit’s Associate Vice President Jon Goldstein said.
The proposal to be unveiled Tuesday adds to other long-term efforts to loosen requirements on the oil and gas industry. In April, the EPA scrapped other parts of the Biden administration’s oil and gas rules, including a restriction on flaring gas from oil wells and one requirement for monitoring vent gas, which the Trump administration said prompted too many unnecessary monitoring tests.
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