On March 14, 2025, President Trump signed H.J. Res. 35, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act disapproving the Environmental Protection Agency's rule titled "Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions." The resolution became Public Law 119-2. Under the Congressional Review Act, a disapproved rule has no force or effect, and the agency may not reissue a rule that is substantially the same without new authorizing legislation.
The resolution passed the House in late February and the Senate shortly after, largely along party lines. It is one of the first uses of the Congressional Review Act in the new Congress, and it targets one of the climate provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that applied directly to the oil and gas industry.
What the charge was
The Inflation Reduction Act amended the Clean Air Act to add a charge on methane emissions from large oil and gas facilities that report to the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The charge applies to emissions above a set intensity threshold, which varies by industry segment. The statute set the charge at $900 per metric ton of methane for emissions in 2024, rising to $1,200 per ton for 2025 and $1,500 per ton from 2026 onward.
The statute left it to the EPA to write the implementing details, including how to calculate a facility's charge, how companies could net emissions across facilities under common ownership, and how exemptions would work. The exemptions included one for facilities in states with methane rules at least as stringent as federal standards, and one for operators complying with the EPA's new source performance standards for methane. The EPA finalized those procedures in November 2024. That is the rule Congress has now disapproved.
What remains in law
The Congressional Research Service has pointed out that the resolution struck the implementing rule, not the statutory requirement itself. Section 136 of the Clean Air Act, added by the Inflation Reduction Act, is still on the books. In principle, the EPA is still required to collect the charge. In practice, without a valid implementing rule and with the Congressional Review Act barring a substantially similar replacement, the charge has no working mechanism for collection.
That leaves a legal question for the EPA and for regulated companies. Facilities would have been due to pay the first charges, covering 2024 emissions, in 2025. Analysts expect no collection to take place for the 2024 reporting year. Any lasting change to the statutory charge would require further legislation, and budget reconciliation in 2025 is one possible vehicle that members of Congress have discussed.
How much money is involved
The EPA had estimated in its rulemaking that the charge would raise revenue in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars a year in its early years, depending on how many facilities qualified for exemptions. Because the exemptions for compliance with federal methane standards would have removed many facilities once those standards took effect, the charge was expected to apply mainly to facilities with high emissions intensity.
For producers, the direct financial effect of the repeal is therefore concentrated among operators with older equipment, higher leak rates or high venting and flaring. Large integrated companies with existing methane reduction programs were less exposed.
The rest of the methane framework
The waste emissions charge was one of three federal methane tools. The second is the EPA's new source performance standards and emissions guidelines for oil and gas, known as OOOOb and OOOOc, finalized in March 2024. These require leak detection and repair, limits on venting and flaring, and replacement of high-emitting equipment such as pneumatic controllers. The third is the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program subpart W, which governs how emissions are measured and reported.
The new administration has said it will reconsider the methane standards and the reporting rules. Changes to those would have to go through notice-and-comment rulemaking, which takes longer than a Congressional Review Act vote. Several states, including Colorado and New Mexico, have their own methane rules that apply regardless of federal changes.
Why buyers abroad are watching
The European Union's methane regulation, adopted in 2024, will require importers of oil, gas and coal to demonstrate that their supplies are subject to monitoring, reporting and verification standards equivalent to those in the EU. The requirements phase in through the second half of the decade, with equivalence obligations for new contracts and a methane intensity limit expected later.
The United States is the largest supplier of LNG to the EU. US exporters had expected federal methane standards and reporting rules to help show equivalence. A weaker federal framework would put more emphasis on company-level measurement, third-party certification and contract terms. Some US producers and LNG developers already offer certified low-methane gas or measurement programs such as those under the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, a voluntary framework run by UNEP.
Asian buyers, including in Japan and Korea, have also shown interest in methane intensity data for LNG cargoes, although their requirements are less formal than the EU's.
What it means for gas markets
The near-term effect on US gas supply is negligible. The charge was never collected and was not a factor in drilling decisions in a meaningful way, given its structure and exemptions. The more significant market question is whether US LNG will face higher compliance costs or contractual friction in the EU as the methane import rules phase in.
For investors, the repeal shifts methane from a federal compliance cost toward a commercial and reputational factor. Companies with credible measurement and low leak rates may find it easier to sign long-term contracts with European buyers. Companies without such data may face discounts or more demanding contract terms.
What to watch
Three developments will shape the outcome. The first is whether Congress amends or repeals the statutory charge itself, which would settle the legal question. The second is how the EPA proceeds on OOOOb and OOOOc and on subpart W reporting, including any delays to compliance dates. The third is how the European Commission writes the implementing rules for equivalence under its methane regulation, which will determine how much documentation US exporters need.
Each of these is a separate process, and each affects a different part of the methane value chain. Together they will determine whether methane intensity becomes a real price factor in transatlantic gas trade.
How it was covered
Ground News, which aggregates ratings from AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, classes the outlets covering this story as 17% left-leaning, 35% center and 48% right-leaning (4 sources, 8 sources and 11 sources respectively, excluding outlets without a bias rating). On framing, Raw Story (rated left-leaning) ran the headline “Trump repeals America’s first-ever tax on greenhouse gases before it goes into effect”; The Hill (rated center) ran the headline “Trump blocks rule to implement methane fee for oil and gas companies”; RedState (rated right-leaning) ran the headline “Affordable Energy Win: Team Trump Brings Relief From Onerous Biden-Era Tax”. The page does not flag the story as a blindspot for either side.