Trump Debuts Oil Rule Rollback As Texas Wobbles Toward Blue

President Donald Trump couldn’t give Ken Paxton lower gas prices — but he did give him a roll back of the methane pollution rule that Paxton has led the legal charge against.

Trump visited West Texas on Tuesday to drum up support for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running a razor tight Senate battle against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. He announced at Tuesday's rally a new draft rule from the U.S. EPA that would lessen requirements for oil and gas companies to limit methane leaks. Paxton was the first to sue over the rule in 2024.

“Under crooked Joe Biden, Democrats crushed small oil and gas operators... with crippling regulations and methane that cause prices to skyrocket,” Trump said. “Tonight, I'm officially terminating Biden's expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers $45 billion dollars in costs, unlock vast quantities of Texas natural gas and produce 210 million barrels of oil.”

Trump said the move “would really bring down the cost.”

GOP candidates nationwide have been facing voter anger over higher gasoline prices caused by the Iran war. Average U.S. gasoline prices hit $4.27 per gallon on Tuesday, one week from election day, compared with averages below $3 per gallon at the start of the year.

Trump used his appearance in oil country to lay blame for those higher costs on former President Joe Biden’s regulatory policies, which he said had stymied U.S. production. Earlier in the day, the president toured an oil tanker to showcase his deal to take majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves.

EPA's draft rule would neutralize one of the last pieces of former President Joe Biden's climate program, requiring oil and gas producers to monitor and repair their operations to prevent methane from leaking into the atmosphere.

The oil and gas sector is the third largest U.S. contributor of greenhouse gases, after motor vehicles and power plants. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin repealed climate rules for those sectors in February and September, respectively.

But methane is a so-called climate superpollutant – more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a twenty-year period. Scientists say methane is likely responsible for about half a degree Celsius of observable global warming.

The biggest impacts expected from Tuesday's draft rule rollback would be for smaller, older oil and gas wells that produce no more than 15 gallons of petroleum per day – some of the lowest-producing wells that also contribute a disproportionate share of climate pollution.Studies based on satellite data show that marginal wells account for roughly half of the sector’s methane pollution, but only 5% of its product. EPA’s new proposal would exempt them from the toughest monitoring and repair requirements.

Democrats quickly jumped on that fact.

“You can look at satellite feeds and see fossil fuel’s massive methane leaks that they’ve lied about for years. Rolling back methane pollution standards, Trump’s EPA once again delivers pay-to-play payback to Trump’s fossil fuel donors,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the expected chair of the Natural Resources Committee if Democrats take the House pledged pushback from his party in Congress.

“All of these rollbacks of air quality and pollution standards are reckless and against the public interest,” he said.

A spokesperson for Whitehouse’s committee counterpart, Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), said she supports the administration's efforts to "lower prices by rolling back costly, unnecessary regulations." Tuesday's announcement, the spokesperson said, would help West Virginia remain an "energy powerhouse."

But Texas energy experts said the move likely wouldn't affect oil prices or voter sentiment. Despite the Biden-era regulations on methane emissions, oil production has trended upward.

Andrew Lipow, a Texas-based oil analyst, said regulations did inhibit production, but weren’t the primary cause of recent price hikes.

“I would say that the impact of the conflicts on price over the past year has been far greater than the impact of regulations,” he said, pointing not only to the Iran war but to the continuing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Joe Brettell, a Texas-based energy communications analyst, said the administration's deregulatory push would be hard to message to voters.

“Trying to use this in a rally a week before the election, that's not exactly ‘win one for the Gipper,’” he said, recalling the late President Ronald Reagan’s 1988 campaign rallying cry.

Lipow predicted that prices would stay high as long as the conflicts continued – whether EPA slashed regulation or not.

But Republicans wary of high costs at the pump were quick to encourage Trump’s fuel affordability message.

“Cutting burdensome red tape and bureaucratic regulation is critical as we work to unleash American energy and produce the reliable, affordable power that hard-working families rely on,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents independent producers and which argued for marginal wells to be treated differently under the rule, said that the 2024 rule “could have threatened the continued operation of hundreds of thousands of marginal wells nationwide.”

“From small towns to major producing regions across the Lower 48, marginal wells are the backbone of a uniquely American energy success story,” said Edith Naegele, President & CEO of IPAA. “Marginal wells support family-sustaining jobs, generate critical local tax revenue, and help ensure that American energy remains reliable, affordable, and secure.”

Reporters Alex Guillén and Andres Picon contributed.