EPA Proposes Loosening Biden-Era Methane Rules, Projects $45 Billion in Savings Through 2050

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a proposal to revise the Biden administration's 2024 oil and natural gas rules under the Clean Air Act, known as OOOOb/c. The EPA says the changes would save $45 billion in costs to consumers and businesses between 2027 and 2050.

The agency also projects an additional 210 million barrels of domestic oil and 1.41 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the same period.

"Tonight, I'm officially terminating Biden's expensive and unnecessary methane regulations," Trump said at the Lubbock event.

What the proposal changes

The EPA's proposal does several things:

• It ends the third-party monitoring program for "super emitter" leak events.
• It creates separate standards for marginal (low-producing) and non-marginal well sites.
• It changes the "No Identifiable Emissions" standard for covers and closed vent systems.
• It restores a 95%-efficient flaring or control standard for gas that comes up alongside oil. The Biden rule instead required that gas to reach a sales line.

Zeldin argues the Biden rule was unworkable. In a Fox News op-ed, he said the 2024 rule was estimated at $18 billion in cost and that even that figure was too low. He said producers warned it would shut existing wells and block new ones.

Zeldin says about 783,000 U.S. oil and gas wells, roughly 79%, are small, low-producing wells, many on family land. He says the Biden rule would have forced mass closures of those wells. He calls the super emitter program "unnecessary, ineffective and built on shaky legal ground."

"When owners and operators can produce, America benefits with lower prices," Zeldin said in the EPA's release.

The price context

The announcement came days before the national average for regular gasoline reached $4.20 a gallon as of Oct. 30. Crude was trading around $103.99 the same day. On Feb. 27, when the U.S. war with Iran began, regular was $2.98, according to the Center for American Progress.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised at the Economic Club of New York to get "gasoline below $2 a gallon." Reuters calculates that gasoline has averaged $3.472 during his second term, against $3.471 across Biden's four years.

The methane rules govern leaks and venting at the wellhead. Gasoline prices track crude, and the oil market is being driven by the Iran war and fuel embargoes in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The EPA has not claimed that the proposal would lower pump prices before the midterms.

The $45 billion estimate also covers 24 years, which works out to roughly $1.9 billion a year. The Guardian calculated that the projected 210 million barrels equals about ten days of U.S. petroleum consumption.

The White House said on Oct. 25 that gas and diesel prices "will soon drop rapidly" because of Trump's energy policies. It did not give a timeline or a figure.

Environmental objections

The Environmental Defense Fund opposes the proposal. In an Oct. 7 statement, the group said it would increase wasted natural gas, pollution and health risks for nearby communities.

"Cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry is the fastest way to fight climate change," EDF project manager Tsion Amare told Grist. "This rule could severely set back the advances we've made over the years."

Grist reports that methane makes up about 12% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Methane is roughly 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year span.

Jody Freeman, director of Harvard Law School's environmental and energy program, wrote in a 2025 Los Angeles Times piece about a separate EPA move, the effort to rescind the endangerment finding. She said "even most oil and gas companies support a national approach to limiting methane." That was not a comment on this proposal, but it reflects a split in the industry that the EPA has not addressed in its release.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright backed the proposal. Burgum called the Biden plan "short-sighted" and said it hurt working families. Wright said it removes "unnecessary regulatory burdens."

Zeldin has said that protecting human health and the environment "isn't changing" as EPA's core mission. He argues the Clean Air Act requires standards that sources can achieve.

What happens next

The rule is a proposal, not a final regulation. A 48-day public comment period will open once the proposal is published. The EPA has not said when that will happen.

The midterm elections are Tuesday, Nov. 3, and the comment period cannot close before then. Any final rule would come only after the EPA reviews the comments.