70% of Americans support the Waste Emissions Charge

Hey hey,

This newsletter is a cross-post from the other newsletter, superpollute, that I co-write with the wonderful Lauren Singer. For this edition, we’d also like to thank our friends at the Global Methane Hub for their insights into public support for the Waste Emissions Charge (WEC).

A DATA DIVE

As Lauren and I have covered extensively previously, the WEC, some of the most ambitious and promising methane and super pollutant-focused legislation ever, will not be implemented. At least not for now. However, the WEC rule itself, as introduced in the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, still legally stands. Also for now.

Earlier this year, Congress passed a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act to disapprove and revoke the EPA’s final rule implementing the WEC, which President Trump signed into law. The EPA subsequently removed all associated regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations in May 2025.

The next fault lines on the policy front hinge on whether the WEC at large is in trouble too, and why policymaking is so detached from public sentiment on this matter, and with respect to sustainability and energy action in general. So here’s the kicker:

These findings stem from a 2025 poll conducted by the Global Methane Hub and Burson Global, which revealed that a substantial majority (more than two-thirds!) of Americans back the Waste Emissions Charge (WEC), a policy originally designed to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for methane leaks and other fugitive methane emissions. As noted in the press release accompanying the polling study from Global Methane Hub and Burson Global:

The avoidable methane emissions in question here aren’t only an economic waste and an environmental harm, given methane’s significant short-term global warming potential. Methane is also an air pollutant because it contributes to the formation of ground-level and tropospheric ozone (O3). And ozone can act as a greenhouse gas, too.

What we want versus what we get

Unfortunately, Congress continues to advance additional legislation to weaken, delay, and/or defund this and many other policies, as well as cuts to grant funding across the DOE and elsewhere, that help mitigate wasteful and harmful practices in oil and gas. The Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP) remains active for now under Section 136 of the Clean Air Act and continues to administer $1.36 billion in grants, technical assistance, and support for new monitoring and detection tech. But a key component, the WEC, as discussed, is unenforceable.

Beyond the policy whiplash, which is deeply harmful to capital allocation and infrastructure development in the U.S,. whether in oil and gas, renewable energy development, or otherwise, as a U.S.-based executive of Shell recently echoed, what’s particularly confusing with respect to the WEC is that many major oil and gas companies are, or at least were, on board with it. Oil majors are best positioned to adopt monitoring tech, new mitigative practices, and new technologies to reduce methane emissions. They’ll likely continue deploying some of it even without enforcement of the WEC, because it makes good financial sense and cents (especially when methane leak rates can approach 10%).

So if both the public and private companies are on board, why isn’t Congress? If energy abundance and independence are truly the goal, keeping more methane in pipes is a no-brainer, especially when you add in the growing energy demand vis-à-vis AI and data center considerations. If the current administration wants to advance the cause of “drill, baby, drill,” you’d think they’d be wise to the fact that, with the price of crude oil domestically and globally down ~25%+ this year, there’s a mounting disincentive to invest in new, high CAPEX exploration and extraction, to say nothing of other energy infrastructure projects caught in the crosswinds of erratic grant and policy cancellations.

To put a finer point on the costs of lost income specifically here, which the current federal administration also at least postures as caring about re: balancing budgets:

Digging even deeper into the great work Global Methane Hub has done to bring more awareness to the growing divide between public opinion and federal policy on these issues, Marcelo Mena, the Global Methane Hub’s CEO, described the many benefits of the WEC and methane mitigation work in general, succinctly alongside the polling data.

The net-net

Methane is 84 times more potent than CO₂ in terms of global warming potential over a 20-year timeframe and has driven ~25% of global warming to date. Add in other super pollutants, and about half of recent and future near-term warming maps to non-CO₂ drivers. Plus, satellites like GHGSat and Carbon Mapper make it easier than ever to track emissions, and there’s a triumvirate of economic rationale, environmental positive, and public support that speaks in favor of sensible legislation to keep methane in pipes and out of the atmosphere.

Still, despite all of the above, many U.S. government representatives seem hellbent on resisting and unwinding what little legislative progress has been made in recent years, even when a majority of their constituents, across party lines, support it. Something to keep front of mind in the ballot box, and (why not!) outside of it, too.

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— Nick