Despite Donald Trump’s disdain for President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, the former president won’t be able to overturn one of Biden’s most significant actions — his crackdown on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry — if the GOP nominee wins a second term.
And the oil and gas industry is fine with that — as long as Trump makes changes to Biden’s new limits on the powerful greenhouse gas.
Methane is the second-biggest driver of climate change after carbon dioxide. Climate scientists have said quickly curbing methane would blunt some of the worst effects of climate change in the coming years, making Biden’s crackdown a key part of his strategy to shrink the pollution warming the planet.
Trump has a history of reversing climate rules. When he first took office in 2017, he quickly moved to repeal the Obama administration’s first-time limits on methane from the oil and gas industry. But a repeat won’t happen if Trump wins this time around because congressional action and growing industry acceptance of direct regulation since then mean EPA’s authority to regulate methane is now essentially unquestioned.
