Congress Passes Bill To Eliminate Fines For Methane Leaks; Shitstain Will Sign It Into Law

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The Senate voted Thursday to overturn a Biden-era rule that required oil companies to pay a fine for emitting methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that has significantly contributed to climate change. The vote was 52-47. The House on Wednesday passed a similar resolution scrapping the Environmental Protection Agency rule, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign the measure into law.

Congressional Republicans are working in lockstep with the Trump administration to dismantle many of President Joe Biden’s climate rules and policies. GOP lawmakers also plan to reverse a Biden-era decision to let California ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035. Overturning the methane rule does not eliminate the EPA’s obligation to levy a fee on methane emissions from large oil and gas facilities. That obligation was written into Biden’s signature 2022 climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and fully undoing it would require additional legislation.

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The fossil fuel industry is not a monolith, and some large oil companies have supported efforts to regulate methane, while many small firms have opposed them. Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), who introduced the resolution to repeal the methane rule, said in an interview Thursday that the regulation has burdened small firms with fewer resources. “For some of the smaller companies, it’s hard for them to respond to this type of tax,” Hoeven said. “But it also affects consumers because that cost gets passed on to consumers. So repealing this is just beneficial to everybody, but particularly small companies.”

Ed. - Know what else gets passed on to consumers, Senator? Methane, more intense heatwaves, worse droughts, more derechos, additional weakness in the jet streams, more hurricanses. But yes, those poor, unfortunate oil companies!!

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, slammed oil companies for lobbying to repeal the methane fee, rather than working to comply with it. “The methane leakers … could avoid the [fee] if they just met industry standards,” Whitehouse told reporters Thursday. “But it’s easier for them to come here and tell the Republicans what to do and exempt themselves than it is to do the responsible thing and fix their pipes and valves and wells.” The Senate is also expected to vote soon on a resolution repealing energy-efficiency standards for tankless gas water heaters. The House passed the measure Thursday.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/27/methane-fee-senate-vote-trump/