In 2024, the Biden administration enacted wide-ranging regulations to protect communities near petrochemical plants from air toxics. The Trump administration has since granted exemptions to scores of polluting facilities and is working to rewrite the long-awaited rule.
Page B1From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 11 September 2026
EPA loosens methane rules for oil and gas wells, third quiet pollution rollback this season.
As it ran on the front
DEATH NOTICE
The federal rule limiting methane leaks from oil and gas wells died Friday, in Washington, at the hand of the agency that wrote it. It was reported by ProPublica. The rule required drillers to monitor for leaks and stop the worst of them; going forward, that duty is expected to loosen, and the methane that would have stayed capped will instead reach the air over well country.…
…(cont) It was preceded in death, by five days, by the rule meant to cut air toxics from petrochemical plants. That rule was born in 2024, under the Biden administration, built for communities living next to the tanks and flares. The Trump EPA has spent the months since granting exemptions to plant after plant and rewriting the rule itself, according to Grist's Sept. 6 accounting. Two rules, five days apart, same signature at the bottom.
It is survived by a newer relative, not yet law: a proposal that would let data-center builders skip public disclosure before construction, delegating that power to the states instead. The rule surfaced at an EPA meeting in July; it applies to diesel generators, the kind of machine a data center runs when the grid isn't enough. Where the methane rule and the chemical-plant rule once required the public to be told, this one is built to let the telling be optional.
Cause of death, in all three cases, is the same: someone decided the public did not need to know, or did not need protecting, before the money moved. That is not deregulation in the abstract. That is a well, a tank, a generator, each one now a little freer to vent into the air of whoever lives closest, who was rarely consulted and will not be billed for the scrubber that didn't get installed.
The rule is survived, too, by the people who live near the wells, the plants, and the data centers, who did not get a vote on any of this and will breathe the difference.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that public comment periods be restored, published, and actually read before the next rule dies quietly.
“This is one hand moving three levers so the public doesn't have to watch: cap the methane, gut the chemical-plant rule, hide the data-center permits from anybody who'd object. They're not announcing this — they're letting the paperwork catch the public up after the fact. The money stays with the wells and the server farms; the air stays with you and your kid's lungs.”
“This isn't loosening, it's streamlining — permitting delegated to the states, because governors know their own air better than Washington does. And the methane numbers, look, the methane numbers are complicated, industry self-reporting has come a long way. Did I say self-reporting? That's — that's not really where I meant to go with this.”
The receipts
The post EPA to Loosen Methane Rules, Boosting Pollution From Oil and Gas Wells appeared first on ProPublica .
· Trump EPA Urged to Withdraw Rule to Let Data Centers Obtain Pollution Permits in Secret from the morgue, 25 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.