Members of the Senate voted Thursday to reverse a Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency rule that limits methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
The waste emissions charge required companies to pay a fine for emitting the powerful greenhouse gas that greatly contributes to climate change.
The lawmakers voted 52-47 to pass the Republican-led bill, sending it to President Donald Trump to sign. The House had voted to overturn the rule on Wednesday.
Notably, overturning the rule does not eliminate the EPA’s obligation to levy a fee on methane emissions from large oil and gas facilities, according to The Washington Post.
The vote drew swift reaction from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats.
“Senate Republicans just voted to reverse the Methane Waste Emissions Charge. They’re standing for Big Oil, pollution, and higher prices. The more Big Oil leaks natural gas during drilling = The higher prices you have to pay for whatever they do deliver,” he wrote in a post on X.
“With all of Trump’s chaos, we can’t lose sight of what’s at stake for our planet. We have got to right the ship,” urged Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
The American Energy Alliance, which is a nonprofit that has been deemed a “climate contrarian,” applauded the move.
“The EPA's methane fee is an unnecessary tax on energy. Energy producers already have a clear economic incentive to reduce methane leakage, as natural gas is a valuable product. Adding an EPA tax on top of this existing motivation only increases compliance costs. Ultimately, consumers bear the burden of this tax through higher energy bills, as the costs are passed on,” Tom Pyle, its president, said in a statement.
But, many see recent moves to gut EPA policies as in step with the president’s fossil fuel industry-backed agenda. And, against reality.
Methane is the second most abundant human-produced greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. It accounts fro about 11 percent of global emissions, according to the EPA.
Emissions are produced by landfills, oil and natural gas systems, coal mining, agricultural activities, and wastewater treatment. Methane is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. A report last year found that emissions are rising faster than ever, contributing to what was a record hot year.
“The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” United Nations chief António Guterres declared in 2023.
“Methane emissions are increasingly driving climate change, but the Republican-controlled Congress would rather help huge oil and gas companies rack up bigger profits than protect people and wildlife from this dangerous pollution,” Maggie Coulter of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement provided to The Independent.
“Big Oil doesn’t have some natural right to harm public health or our environment, so we’ll keep fighting to end methane pollution and make polluters pay for the leakage and intentional venting of this climate super-pollutant,” she wrote.
