"In both terms, Trump has rolled back or blocked attempts to reduce highly warming methane emissions from the oil and gas industry."
"In the Permian Basin of West Texas, methane gas billows from oil wells. It blasts out of pressure valves on pipelines, wafts from sprawling gas processing plants and rises up in plumes when companies air out systems during routine maintenance in the nation’s largest oilfield.
More than a decade of efforts to bring these practices under control has yielded slim results. The Obama administration proposed methane standards in 2015, but the first Trump administration rolled them back. The Biden administration developed a detailed set of rules, which the second Trump administration blocked.
Now, the Trump administration plans to release its own proposed rules for methane this month, according to a recent announcement by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, continues to flow freely from the Permian Basin and other U.S. oilfields, even as global temperatures break new records."
Dylan Baddour reports for Inside Climate News October 20, 2026.
