The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is delaying the implementation of restrictions on planet-warming methane emissions from oil and gas drilling as it considers unwinding the requirements entirely.
The Biden administration issued a rule that requires oil and gas drillers to take steps to limit leaks and, at new wells, to phase out the routine burning of excess gas, also known as flaring.
The rule was expected to cut down on methane emissions and also to reduce releases of toxic air pollutants.
This week, the Trump administration quietly issued an interim final rule that pushes back the policy’s compliance deadlines.
It said it was doing so “to address legitimate concerns … that certain regulatory provisions are not currently workable or contain problematic regulatory language that frustrates compliance.”
Under the interim final rule, companies will have 18 months before they need to install certain pollution controls.
Critics called it a corporate giveaway.
“Many oil and gas operators have already been complying with these requirements for nearly a year, while others are investing and planning ways to reduce methane pollution to meet the standards. Delaying implementation will simply give a handout to the worst actors who would be able to continue their polluting ways with zero consequences or accountability to neighboring communities,” said Mahyar Sorour, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy, in a written statement.
The Trump administration has also put the regulation in question on a hit list of Biden-era rules that it may reverse.
The latest move comes in the same week that the agency proposed to overturn its landmark finding that greenhouse gases such as methane pose a threat to public health through the changing climate.
