With methane rules on the chopping block, where does Big Oil stand?
The Trump EPA could do away with methane regulations that major oil companies and their trade associations have strategically claimed to support.
As part of the Trump administration’s effort to overhaul climate and environmental oversight, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has promised to reconsider methane rules he claims are “throttling the oil and gas industry.”
For years, however, oil majors and their trade associations have publicly claimed to support federal methane regulation — even as they’ve worked to weaken specific measures that would hold them accountable for pollution from the powerful greenhouse gas.
Now, as the EPA moves to repeal the scientific basis of all greenhouse gas regulation, potentially allowing the agency to do away with methane and other climate rules completely, Big Oil may be getting more than it asked for. Inside Climate News reported that, according to an inside source, the oil and gas industry prefers that the Trump administration not get rid of methane regulations entirely. Before Trump took office, the CEOs of Exxon and TotalEnergies made the same plea.
History shows why that might be the case. A review of internal documents obtained through a congressional investigation, public comments, and lobbying and legal records over the past decade indicates that major oil companies and their main trade association see supporting methane regulations as a way to maintain industry credibility across changing administrations and even overseas.
As long as they participate in a regulatory framework, the companies are able to cultivate a responsible public image while still fighting policies aimed at reducing methane.
“When it comes to actual policies where oil companies can be held accountable for their methane emissions, we see positions that differ from what they say in their topline statements,” said Vivek Parekh, a program manager tracking corporate engagement on methane policies at nonprofit thinktank InfluenceMap. “They’ve actually been engaging and advocating quite intensively to weaken the U.S. methane regulations.”
“Ammunition” to shape regulation
After trying and failing to block methane regulations under the Obama administration, the American Petroleum Institute in 2017 launched the Environmental Partnership — a voluntary initiative of oil and gas companies including Shell, Chevron, Exxon, and BP that said they would implement technological solutions to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But according to notes from a BP executive who attended a 2017 API meeting on voluntary methane pledges, an API representative described the Environmental Partnership as “ammunition to help us better mitigate/mold regulation when it does come.” That same year, API, BP, Exxon, Chevron and other oil companies lobbied on a congressional joint resolution to oppose the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) methane rule.
In its attempts to weaken regulation over the years, API has continued to cite the Environmental Partnership as an example of the industry’s credibility. In a 2023 blog post claiming to support regulation but decrying the Biden EPA’s proposed timeline for compliance, API claimed, “Our members’ work to reduce methane emissions began before President Biden took office. Industry-led initiatives, such as The Environmental Partnership launched in 2017, have accelerated progress.”
“The point: When our industry speaks on the federal methane regulation under development by EPA, it does so with a high level of credibility, earned by years of experience developing and deploying methane emissions reduction technologies and techniques in the field.”
In reality, experts say methane pledges are of dubious value, as the industry may be emitting three times the amount of methane they report to the government. The fossil fuel industry’s methane emissions remain “stubbornly high,” according to the International Energy Agency.
Yet those pledges have “assumed great prominence in investor presentations and sustainability reports. Oil and gas companies have emphasized their progress and plans at nearly every high-profile industry conference,” wrote Ben Cahill, director for energy markets and policy at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Energy and Environmental Systems Analysis in a recent blog. “A regulatory rollback would push against this tide."
Protecting the industry’s “license to operate”
After the first Trump administration began proposing rollbacks to methane regulations, oil majors including BP, Exxon, and Shell publicly urged the agency to continue regulating methane.
In 2019 comments to the EPA on the proposed rollbacks, BP wrote that “we risk losing the confidence of investors, consumers, policymakers and other stakeholders” — and that “we need to protect natural gas’ license to operate.” Still, the company urged the Trump administration to weaken the EPA’s rule targeting methane leaks from drilling operations.
During the Biden administration, the EPA enacted the most comprehensive methane regulations yet. For the first time, the agency would regulate existing sources of methane and implement requirements for leak monitoring and flaring at wells and compressor stations, among other new programs and standards.
Internally, the industry had agreed on a strategy to publicly support the new regulatory push as soon as Biden took office. In a January 2021 email to industry executives, API’s CEO Mike Sommers wrote that the trade group was changing its position to endorse regulation in order to “advocate for our industry’s license to operate.” Embracing methane regulation “could be a key precursor to increasing public confidence in our industry's performance while also signaling to [the] Biden Administration that API needs to be at table as they quickly shift in federal regulatory policy,” Sommers wrote.
Fighting policies to reduce methane
During the Biden administration, Big Oil continued to position itself as a partner in crafting regulation to reduce methane emissions — even as industry representatives sought to weaken federal oversight.
In comments to the agency, API and other trade associations aimed to weaken the BLM’s reinstated waste prevention rule, which intended to reduce the amount of gas flared on federal lands.
API also targeted parts of the EPA’s proposed methane rules that would strengthen leak detection and repair measures, require states to update their methane emissions standards for existing facilities, and address orphaned and abandoned wells, which are now one of the biggest sources of methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.
In 2024, API filed a lawsuit challenging parts of the EPA’s methane rules, such as standards for flaring, which is currently paused as the EPA makes changes to the rules. API and other trade organizations also filed legal petitions challenging the EPA’s amendment to greenhouse gas reporting rules, which were intended to ensure more accurate methane emissions reporting. Those petitions have also been paused.
Many industry groups and companies aggressively opposed the methane fee passed through the Inflation Reduction Act, which would have forced oil and gas companies to pay for excess methane emissions. Days after Trump was elected, API put out a 5-point policy plan advocating for the administration to work with Congress to repeal the methane fee.
Congress has since delayed the implementation of that fee by 10 years, adding 640,000 metric tons of excess methane emissions annually — the equivalent climate impact of 13 million passenger cars — according to a new analysis by advocacy group Gas Leaks.
Last month, the Trump EPA delayed deadlines for the fossil fuel industry to reduce its methane emissions, bypassing public comment to provide an extension at API’s request. The delay is expected to significantly increase methane and other toxic air pollution.
The EPA also delayed a program — which had been criticized by BP, Exxon, and other major oil companies — that allowed third parties to monitor for large methane leaks. A decade earlier, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson had been warned that the use of advanced methane monitoring technology could prompt “citizen activists and citizen scientists combining their field observation of methane plumes into online databases and creat[e] a groundswell for regulatory or legislative action.”
What’s next
In March, the EPA said its enforcement and compliance work would “no longer focus on methane emissions from oil and gas facilities.”
Zeldin testified before Congress that the agency is working to finalize new methane rules this year — which could mean revising the rules or attempting to repeal them entirely, experts said.
But just as gutting the Clean Air Act could open the fossil fuel industry up to further litigation, doing away with methane regulations completely may not be in the industry’s best interest either — especially when it comes to business overseas.
U.S. oil and gas trade associations and companies have ramped up lobbying efforts to weaken EU methane regulations, which could soon be the strongest ones they have to comply with.
Now, the oil and gas industry is pushing for rules that would deem U.S. methane rules “equivalent,” allowing them to automatically comply with EU law, InfluenceMap found. Doing away with the U.S. rules entirely could subject the industry to even more stringent regulation abroad.
In an April memo to the Trump Administration, API asked that the EPA finalize its reconsideration of the methane rule “consistent with industry recommendations.”
Josh Eisenfeld, oil and gas research and accountability manager at Earthworks, said he wasn’t surprised by the trade group’s actions. “They’re doing what they can to keep their member corporations relevant in a world where they’re producing a product that's pushing us towards extinction.”
Well written. I should not be at a loss for words, but I kind of am. It's always humbling to read.