LEE ZELDIN: Biden's energy rules cost billions. Trump's EPA is lowering costs
So much of America runs on oil and gas. It's fuel in vehicles and heat in homes. It's the diesel in the tractor that grows your food and the truck that hauls it to your grocery store. When it costs more to produce and supply goes down, you pay more for almost everything.
That's why President Donald Trump and I were in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday to announce our biggest step yet to fix one of the Biden administration's costliest mistakes. EPA's new proposal to overhaul the Biden-era oil and natural gas rules is expected to save Americans $45 billion. It would also unleash an estimated 210 million more barrels of American oil and 1.41 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
In 2024, the Biden EPA slapped one-size-fits-all mandates on oil and gas producers, from the biggest companies to families with a single well. By its own estimate, the rule would cost $18 billion and push natural gas prices higher, and even those estimates were too low. Worse, the Biden EPA refused to admit what producers told us again and again: these rules would shut down existing wells and keep new ones from ever opening.
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Producers don't absorb those costs. You do. You pay at the pump, on your heating bill and at the checkout line, because farmers paying more for diesel have to charge more for their crops.
Nobody was hit harder than America's marginal well owners. About 783,000 of the nation's oil and gas wells, roughly 79%, are small, low-producing wells, many on family land. Families use them to heat their homes, run their farm equipment and build their retirement. The Biden rule would have forced mass closures of these wells.
Our proposal fixes that. We are proposing separate, workable standards for different kinds of well sites, so a family's stripper well isn't treated like a major operation. We are proposing to end the so-called super emitter program, which is unnecessary, ineffective and built on shaky legal ground. And for the natural gas that comes up alongside oil, we are restoring a commonsense standard: 95% efficient flaring or other controls, instead of a mandate that every bit of it reach a sales line that simply doesn't exist in many producing areas.
Protecting human health and the environment is EPA's core mission, and that isn't changing. The Clean Air Act requires standards that sources can actually achieve. The Biden EPA touted "zero emissions" requirements while ignoring that existing rules already required 95% reductions, then stuffed its rule with exemptions to paper over the gap.
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We are writing rules that match reality, and we want to hear from the states and operators who know it best.
Beyond Tuesday’s announcement, the Trump EPA has racked up a series of wins that have proven popular everywhere the president has traveled, and Texas is no exception. Over the past year, the agency finalized a record $1.6 trillion in deregulatory savings, a historic effort that is advancing consumer choice and lowering costs on vehicles, energy, food, and more with commonsense actions that prove we can protect the environment and grow the economy at the same time.
The repeal of the 2009 Obama-era Endangerment Finding alone delivered $1.3 trillion in cost savings and made vehicles more affordable, while eliminating the federal incentive behind the almost universally hated start/stop feature that killed engines at every red light. That stands in stark contrast to the $1.3 trillion in unnecessary rules the Biden EPA piled onto American families and the economy.
The Trump EPA has also moved aggressively to reverse the Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) deratements that left farmers and truckers stranded on the side of the road and in the field. John Deere has now updated all major models for the fall 2026 harvest to align with EPA’s guidance, and the agency is finalizing a new deregulatory proposal to permanently remove all DEF deratement requirements on new vehicles, non-road equipment and engines. Building on that work, EPA has protected Americans’ Right to Repair their own tractors and non-road equipment under the Clean Air Act, and this past July took further action to advance the Freedom to Fix in accordance with President Trump’s memo.
The math here is simple. When American producers can produce, America wins through lower gas and diesel prices, lower heating bills, lower grocery costs and more good-paying energy jobs. Lower costs at the well and higher energy supplies mean more money in your wallet.
President Trump promised to end the war on American energy and this proposal is one more promise kept.