Trump blocks rule to implement methane fee for oil and gas companies

President Trump on Friday signed a resolution to block the implementation of a fee on oil and gas companies’ excess methane emissions.

The resolution blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 rule that implemented the fee program, which was established in the Democrats’ 2022 climate, tax and health care bill.

Technically, the fee is still in the law, since the 2022 legislation has not been overturned. It was not immediately clear what the impacts will be of overturning the 2024 rule implementing the law. 

But the methane fee program — which also provides funds to help companies install emissions-reducing technology — is likely to be overturned as part of a larger package that Republicans are hoping to pass in the months ahead. 

Republicans celebrated Trump’s move — and vowed to overturn the program legislatively.

“I’m honored to join President Trump and my congressional colleagues in officially rejecting the Democrats’ attempt to collect a tax on natural gas production and stand for American energy dominance,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said in a written statement. 

“I will continue to work with my colleagues through the reconciliation process to stop the underlying law establishing this tax that was a part of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act,” said Capito, who chairs the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

Methane is a planet-warming gas that is about 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide. It is also the main component of natural gas. Sometimes, during the oil and gas drilling process, companies will burn off or release some of the gas rather than capturing it to sell — releasing planet-warming emissions into the atmosphere.