Under US pressure, EU moves to soften rules for fighting climate superpollutant 

BRUSSELS — The European Union is bowing to demands from the United States and the fossil fuel industry that it scale back its efforts to fight a planet-warming superpollutant.

The EU in 2021 vowed to curb emissions of methane and drew up legislation that forces the oil and gas sector to limit emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas, which is responsible for around a third of the global rise in temperatures since the industrial era. 

Now, however, Brussels is poised to significantly weaken enforcement of its flagship methane regulation, granting fossil fuel companies the freedom to pollute with a focus on protecting the continent’s energy security, according to a draft document seen by POLITICO. 

The Trump administration has intensified pressure on the regulation — a stark turnaround from 2021, when the U.S. under then-President Joe Biden co-launched a worldwide campaign with the EU to rein in methane pollution. 

“The EU’s Methane Regulation risks triggering another energy crisis,” Andrew Puzder, the U.S. ambassador to the bloc, wrote last week. “To avoid it, Brussels needs a regulatory environment that encourages, not discourages, suppliers.”

The oil and gas industry has also piled pressure on the European Commission to weaken the regulation, arguing that enforcing the law would threaten the bloc’s energy supply and drive up already rising prices from 2027. 

That runs counter to advice from the International Energy Agency, which this week warned that methane escaping during fossil fuel production — the key issue the EU regulation seeks to tackle — wastes more gas than flows through the currently blocked Strait of Hormuz. (Natural gas is predominantly methane.)

But the escalating pressure, coupled with concerns about the Iran war’s effect on fossil fuel cost and supply, has left the EU susceptible to industry’s energy security framing.

“The methane regulation on the one hand is a really important one, on the other hand we also see that there are some concerns,” said Stientje van Veldhoven, climate minister of the Netherlands, whose government usually backs ambitious action to rein in global warming. 

Asked if she shared concerns that the regulation will threaten security of supply, she said: “That’s at least what we should avoid. So if there are concerns, it’s important to look into them carefully … The question is what is needed to get the benefits of what this regulation is trying to achieve, but not risking an import shock.” 

‘Disastrous signal’

Scientists say curbing methane emissions is the fastest way to slow climate change. That’s because the gas is both very effective at trapping heat and relatively short-lived, staying just a decade in the atmosphere whereas CO2 sticks around for hundreds of years. 

The majority of methane emissions linked to human activity are released through agriculture, a tricky source to decarbonize. By contrast, quick and cheap fixes are available to address pollution from the fossil fuel sector, which is responsible for 35 percent of methane emissions. 

Fossil fuel executives are no more enthusiastic, warning that the European Commission’s approach risks worsening the sense of regulatory uncertainty. | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

The EU’s methane regulation seeks to do just that, obliging the oil and gas sector to monitor their sites for methane leaks and fix them fast. The law also bans methane venting and non-emergency burning of gas, known as flaring. 

The legislation requires all oil and gas imported into the EU to meet the same standards from 2027 — the crunch issue for fossil fuel producers, which would effectively be required to comply with the bloc’s rules no matter where they are based. 

Now, however, the Commission is planning to relax enforcement of those rules. In the draft guidelines the EU executive says governments can grant companies broad exemptions from penalties for breaching the rules if an energy crisis develops — and even before any real disruption occurs. 

The recommendations could still change before their official release in June. But Brussels’ apparent surrender to U.S. and industry pressure has already sparked an outcry. 

“Suspending penalty payments puts those who have already fulfilled their obligations at a disadvantage,” said Jutta Paulus, a German Greens MEP who negotiated the methane regulation on behalf of the European Parliament. 

“It sends a disastrous signal in response to pressure from the U.S. and undermines our energy security,” she added.

Washington’s ire

The Trump administration has stepped up lobbying efforts against the EU’s methane rules after demanding that the U.S. — which provides 28 percent of the bloc’s gas, up from 6 percent in 2021 — be exempt from the regulation in a letter to member-state governments in December.

Puzder, the U.S. ambassador, has repeatedly asked Brussels to weaken the rules, writing in the Financial Times last month that the regulation will “restrict access to supply options, forcing EU factories, power plants and households to face an energy supply gap and higher prices.” (The U.S. mission to the EU did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.)

Washington’s lobbying has emboldened the already skeptical fossil fuel industry, which launched a fresh campaign against the rules earlier this year. 

The International Association of Oil & Gas Producers argues that companies can’t conform to the regulation in time — jeopardizing the EU’s energy security by leaving 87 percent of crude oil supply and 43 percent of gas non-compliant for import.

Critics say such warnings are overblown. The Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit, says the IOGP’s forecasts are “a result of unrealistic modelling choices, conservative market assumptions, and a basic misunderstanding of what the regulation actually requires.” 

Zombie rules

The EU executive has ruled out reworking the legislation itself. Instead the Commission has sought to balance industry demands against green ambitions by encouraging EU governments to “pragmatically” police the rules and take advantage of existing loopholes, as the draft guidance shows. 

In the draft guidelines the EU executive says governments can grant companies broad exemptions from penalties for breaching the rules if an energy crisis develops. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

The fudge has left no one happy. Green groups say the proposed flexibilities are so far-ranging that they will permit all manner of rule breaches on ill-defined energy security grounds, without setting clear limits to such exemptions. 

The upshot is a “Schrödinger’s cat situation, where they can say the regulation is still alive … but at the same time it doesn’t have any teeth,” said Léa Pilsner, a senior climate policy analyst at the Environmental Defense Fund. “The very real risk is a zombie regulation, one that walks and talks but is structured in a way that it never has to be enforced.” 

Fossil fuel executives are no more enthusiastic, warning that the Commission’s approach risks worsening the sense of regulatory uncertainty. Håkon Fonseca Nordang, a spokesperson for IOGP’s Europe branch, said that while the lobby group had yet to analyze the draft guidelines, “it is difficult to see how a ‘recommendation’ — however well-intentioned — can supersede some of the challenging requirements set out in the regulation itself.”

He added that the emphasis on flexibilities — instead of changing the law outright, or pausing it — made compliance more difficult.

“While this may help ease the financial risks of non-compliance, it will likely do little to address possible legal and reputational risks,” he said. That such measures were being considered, he added, “suggests a recognition by the Commission itself that the timeline and requirements written into the regulation simply don’t work.”

The Commission has a policy of not commenting on leaked documents, but said through a spokesperson that the methane regulation “is the most ambitious and most comprehensive methane-related regulatory framework of its kind worldwide.”

EU governments in December “agreed with us to work on guidance on compliance solutions and penalty regimes,” the spokesperson added. “We are now pursuing this work with them.”