Economy 5 min read By Callum Montgomery
Trump rolls back Biden-era methane rules as petrol tops $4 a gallon
The Trump administration has proposed loosening Biden-era methane regulations for oil and gas producers, with the EPA projecting $45 billion in savings through 2050 as pump prices stay high.
The Trump administration has proposed loosening Biden-era methane rules for oil and gas producers, a move announced as the national average price of petrol climbed to $4.20 a gallon. The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled the proposal on Tuesday in Lubbock, Texas, alongside President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, presenting it as a benefit to producers, particularly smaller operators.
The proposal projects an estimated $45 billion in savings for consumers and businesses between 2027 and 2050. It also forecasts an additional 210 million barrels of domestic oil production and 1.41 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the same period. Whether those savings will reach the petrol pump is less clear, as the estimate is spread over more than two decades and fuel prices track crude oil, which was trading at around $103.99 on 30 October amid the continuing Iran war.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump accused Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of waging a «war on energy» and promised to bring gasoline below $2 a gallon. Reuters data cited in coverage shows regular gasoline averaged $3.472 a gallon during Trump's second presidency, narrowly above the $3.471 average during Biden's four years in office.
The rules under review were finalised by the Biden administration in 2024 under the Clean Air Act. They set methane-emissions standards for new and existing oil and natural gas operations, including requirements to detect and repair leaks and to limit the release of natural gas from oil wells. The Biden government framed them as a way to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that escapes during fossil fuel production.
The Trump administration argues those requirements imposed excessive compliance costs, especially on smaller operators and owners of marginal wells. The EPA said marginal wells account for roughly four in every five producing wells in the country, and that many are family-owned, with income from them used to power homes, fuel farm equipment and fund retirement savings. Doug Burgum, the US Secretary of the Interior, said in the agency's press release that the Biden administration's plan had hurt hard-working families and crushed businesses, adding that the current administration was returning money to Americans by returning energy production to American workers and communities.
The proposal also considers separate regulatory standards for marginal and higher-producing wells, and would rescind the Biden-era Super Emitter Program, which allowed certified third-party organisations to identify and report major methane leaks to regulators. The EPA's own regulatory impact analysis estimates about 60 million additional short tons of methane would be released from 2027 through 2050, a figure that sits at the centre of the environmental objections to the plan.
Critics have pointed to Trump's wider record on environmental regulation. Jody Freeman, a professor of law and director of the environmental and energy program at Harvard Law School, wrote in August 2025 in The Los Angeles Times that the administration's earlier effort to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, the scientific basis for regulating greenhouse gases, was an extreme step that no industry had requested. She argued that car makers need stable federal rules, that power companies have invested billions in renewables, and that even most oil and gas companies support a national approach to limiting methane.
The proposal is not yet final. The EPA has said it will hold a public comment period of at least 45 days and a public hearing after the rule is published in the Federal Register. That timetable means no final rule can take effect before next week's midterm elections, leaving the energy policy debate to unfold in the months after voters go to the polls.
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