The New York Times reports:

The Biden administration said Tuesday that it would heavily regulate methane, a potent greenhouse gas that spews from oil and natural gas operations and can warm the atmosphere 80 times as fast as carbon dioxide in the short term.

For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency intends to limit the methane coming from roughly one million existing oil and gas rigs across the United States. The federal government previously had rules that aimed to prevent methane leaks from oil and gas wells built since 2015, but they were rescinded by the Trump administration. Mr. Biden intends to restore and strengthen them, aides said.

Mr. Biden is in Glasgow this week for a United Nations climate summit, where he is trying to persuade other countries to reduce emissions from fossil fuels that are heating the planet to dangerous levels.

The methane announcement comes as Mr. Biden faces intense pressure both internationally and at home to show that the United States, the nation that has pumped the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is serious about mitigating climate change. [Continue reading…]