The Senate voted Wednesday to restore an Obama-era regulation that imposed limits on methane leaks from oil and gas operations. The move marks both the first major congressional rebuke of former president Donald Trump’s environmental policies, and a step forward for the Biden administration’s ambitious climate agenda.
Biden has called limiting emissions of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas that when released without being burned has more than 80 times the climate impact of carbon dioxide — key to his pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by the end of the decade.
In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted a rule requiring oil and gas companies to curb methane leaks and emissions from their operations. Late last summer, the Trump administration undid it.
The Senate vote is a step toward undoing that reversal. If enacted, the measure would restore requirements on companies to check every six months for methane leaks from pipelines, storage tanks and other equipment installed after 2015 — and plug any leak within 30 days after it is detected.
The Congressional Review Act gives lawmakers the power to nullify any regulation within 60 days of enactment and dictates that once a regulation has been revoked, no new “substantially the same” regulation can be adopted. Requiring only a simple majority vote, it is the swiftest way to overturn an existing federal rule. Otherwise, it would take at least a year, if not longer, for an agency to rewrite it.