The environmental debt incurred by North America’s shale gas revolution may end up being paid by the entire world.

A warning sign erected at the site of a plugged and abandoned well. Moreover, plugging and reclaiming a typical shale oil and gas well is significantly more expensive—costing nearly $300,000—because shale wells are typically deeper and more technically challenging to decommission than conventional oil and gas wells. Who will foot the bill for these abandoned oil and gas wells? According to S&P Global data, approximately $137 billion in debt held by the U.S. shale oil industry matured between 2020 and 2022. When global oil prices were favorable, companies could maintain cash flow by issuing new debt to repay old obligations. Yet today, many firms are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy—let alone able to afford plugging wells. Shale gas workers on a construction site. Ultimately, cleanup responsibilities fall to government authorities—and every U.S. state with oil and gas resources is struggling under this burden. In Pennsylvania, for example, at the current rate of funding and expenditure, it would take thousands of years to plug and remediate the backlog of roughly 200,000 abandoned oil and gas wells. Pipelines operated by shale gas companies. The Trump administration moves to rescind methane regulations. Even more alarmingly, while U.S. government scientists have repeatedly issued detailed warnings about the economic damage global warming inflicts on the United States, former President Trump has persistently rejected the scientific consensus that human activities are driving climate change. In 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed eliminating federal regulations governing methane emissions from oil and gas facilities nationwide—effectively removing federal requirements for the shale oil and gas industry to reduce methane emissions, with no new rules expected to replace them. Methane leakage. This policy is expected to be formally enacted this year. Projections suggest it will save the oil and gas industry $17–19 million annually—but at the cost of an estimated additional 370,000 tons of methane emissions in 2025, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of one million U.S. households. In March this year, Trump also terminated the Obama-era U.S. vehicle emissions standards, requiring automakers to improve fuel efficiency by only 1.5% annually through 2026—down from the previous target of 5%. U.S. automobile fuel consumption remains extremely high. Trump further extended a financial lifeline to oil and gas companies: beyond the $2 trillion economic stimulus package permitting corporate loans, he announced in mid-March the purchase of 77 million barrels of oil from U.S. oil and gas producers for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve—at a total cost of $3 billion. According to data from the American Petroleum Institute (API), the energy sector accounted for 7.6% of U.S. GDP in 2018 and provided 5.6% of U.S. employment in 2015; oil extraction infrastructure remains a key driver of U.S. economic growth. During the first half of this year, gasoline prices dropped below $2 per gallon in many parts of the U.S. Thus, Trump cannot afford to stand idly by as the oil and gas industry collapses—a collapse that would ripple across upstream and downstream sectors including storage, transportation, refining, and retail sales. Yet, as Dr. Robert Howarth stated, reducing carbon dioxide emissions alone cannot achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate targets, because the climate system responds far more rapidly to methane. Controlling methane emissions is essential to limiting global warming to below the internationally agreed 2°C threshold—and thereby avoiding the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. Failure to control methane emissions will inevitably doom humanity’s efforts to combat climate change.

2025 Global Climate Policy Dynamics (Continuously Tracked)

January 20, 2025: Upon taking office, Trump signed multiple executive orders related to climate policy, including: withdrawing from the Paris Agreement; declaring a national “energy emergency” to promote U.S. energy exploration, production, and exports; terminating the Democratic administration’s flagship ‘Green New Deal’ (i.e., the Inflation Reduction Act); and canceling incentives and subsidies for electric vehicles. It should be noted that this marks the United States’ second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement—having previously withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol as well. February 8: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was officially disbanded, resulting in reduced funding for global climate initiatives. Relevant data are available in detail elsewhere. February 14: A memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security instructed senior officials to “eliminate all climate change-related activities in DHS policies and programs to the maximum extent permitted by law” and to discontinue use of the term “climate change.” February 14: The U.S. established a National Energy Council, tasked with formulating federal energy policy and facilitating permitting, production, and distribution of oil, natural gas, electricity, and other energy resources. An unnamed senior U.S. official stated that this new White House council would be led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright serving as vice chair. March 12: The Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the rescission of 31 regulatory measures. Subsequently, the EPA stated that it would: (1) review the Biden-era Clean Power Plan—which aimed to reduce power plant carbon emissions to mitigate global warming—and lower greenhouse gas emission standards for heavy- and light-duty vehicles produced after 2027; (2) move to rescind a 2009 scientific determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health—a finding that has served as the foundational legal basis for all EPA greenhouse gas regulations to date, including the classification of carbon dioxide as an air pollutant; (3) slash $2 billion in grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) administered via “green banks”; (4) drastically reduce the “social cost of carbon”—an economic estimate of the damages caused by each additional ton of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere—and, per Trump’s Day-One directive, consider fully eliminating this metric; and (5) relax regulatory oversight of the oil and gas industry, including exploring options to permit broader reuse of treated oil and gas drilling wastewater. April 8: Trump issued the executive order titled “Protecting American Energy from Excessive State Government Interference,” whose explicit purpose is to identify and invalidate state laws or regulations that violate the U.S. Constitution or exceed states’ legal authority—thereby unleashing energy development. The order prioritizes reviewing state-level policies concerning “climate change,” “environmental, social, and governance (ESG)” initiatives, “environmental justice,” carbon or “greenhouse gas” emissions, and revenues derived from carbon fines or carbon taxes. Specifically, the order singles out California’s cap-and-trade program as imposing an unattainable emissions cap (“CAP”) on energy companies while extracting massive revenues through carbon credit trading (“TRADE”). May 30: The U.S. Department of Energy announced on its official website the cancellation of 24 government-backed projects administered by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), with a combined value exceeding $3.7 billion. In its statement, the Department of Energy said it had conducted comprehensive, independent financial reviews of each project and concluded they “fail to meet the American people’s energy needs,” “lack economic viability,” and “do not deliver positive returns on taxpayer investment.”

EPA Says It Will Soon Rescind Biden Policy Targeting Methane Leaks

4 days ago

The US EPA announced it will soon propose rescinding a Biden-era policy aimed at curbing methane leaks from oil and gas operations. Administrator Lee Zeldin cited energy affordability as a primary reason for removing what he termed unnecessary burdens on producers.

reuters

2026-04-01

EPA Proposes Exempting Plastic Pyrolysis Plants from Clean Air Act

2026-04-02

EPA bolsters biofuels with blending actions

2026-05-01

EPA Budget Hearing Ignores Budget

2026-05-19

EPA proposes rescinding drinking-water limits for 4 PFAS

2026-05-20

EPA rescinds Biden PFAS limits in drinking water, proposes longer deadlines