TLDR
EPA kept its rules requiring oil and gas companies to find and fix methane leaks. But it made it easier for them to burn off excess gas (called "flaring") instead of capturing it. The basic rules stay, but the enforcement got looser. Takes effect June 8, 2026.
First: What Is Methane?
You know carbon dioxide — the gas that comes out of tailpipes and smokestacks. Methane is CO₂'s less famous but more dangerous cousin. Pound for pound, methane traps about 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO₂ over a 20-year period.
The good news: methane breaks down faster than CO₂ — about 12 years versus hundreds of years. So if we can reduce methane emissions, we'd see a faster impact on slowing climate change than cutting CO₂ alone.
Methane is actually the main ingredient in natural gas — the stuff that heats homes and powers stoves. When it leaks from oil and gas wells, pipelines, or storage tanks, it's both a climate problem and a waste of something worth money.
How much methane comes from oil and gas?
The oil and gas industry is responsible for roughly 30% of all methane emissions in the United States. Some of it leaks from equipment. Some is released on purpose — either vented (just let go into the air) or flared (burned off at the wellhead).
What Is Flaring?
Imagine you're filling a glass of water from a hose.
When oil comes out of the ground, natural gas (methane) often comes up with it. This is called "associated gas." If there's a pipeline nearby, the company can capture that gas and sell it. But sometimes there's no pipeline — maybe the well is new and the pipeline isn't built yet, or there isn't enough gas to justify one.
So what do you do with the gas? You have three choices: capture it (best for the environment), burn it off at the top of a tall pipe — that's flaring — or just release it into the air — that's venting.
Flaring is better than venting because burning methane converts it to CO₂, which traps less heat. But it's still releasing greenhouse gases. And the flame doesn't always burn perfectly, so some methane escapes unburned.
What Did EPA Change?
In 2024, EPA put rules in place that pushed oil and gas companies to capture gas instead of flaring it. The new rule, finalized on April 9, 2026, keeps that basic framework but loosens it in two main ways:
More situations where flaring is allowed. The old rules said: capture the gas. The new rules say: capture the gas, but if you can't — maybe your pipeline isn't ready, maybe there was a storm, maybe production spiked unexpectedly — you can flare for up to 24 hours without penalty. In emergency situations, you can flare even longer.
Less monitoring of flare efficiency. The old rules required companies to continuously check that their flares were burning properly — not just shooting raw methane into the sky. The new rules let companies do spot-checks instead of continuous monitoring, and they exempt some types of equipment entirely.
What didn't change
The basic requirement to find and fix methane leaks from equipment is still there. Companies still have to inspect their wells and pipelines for leaks and repair them. The structure of the rules stayed — the details of enforcement are what shifted.
Who Wants This and Who Doesn't?
The oil and gas industry said the old rules were too rigid for real-world conditions. When a new well starts producing and the pipeline isn't ready, you either have to shut down the well (losing money) or break the rule by flaring. They wanted a practical middle ground.
Environmental groups say "temporary" flaring allowances tend to become permanent in practice. They worry that once companies have an easier path to flaring, fewer of them will invest in the infrastructure to capture gas. And they point out that every molecule of methane that's flared instead of captured is a molecule that didn't need to reach the atmosphere.
The bottom line
This rule takes effect June 8, 2026. It could still be challenged in court. The core question is whether giving industry more flexibility to flare will result in more methane reaching the atmosphere — or whether it's a practical adjustment that keeps the overall framework intact while acknowledging real-world conditions.
Source: Federal Register, 91 FR 18056 (April 9, 2026). 40 CFR Part 60 (NSPS OOOOb, EG OOOOc). Have a correction? Contact us.