President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, authorized the EPA to levy a fee on wasteful methane emissions from large oil and gas facilities. The fee starts at $900 per metric ton of emissions in 2024, increasing to $1,200 in 2025 and $1,500 in 2026.

If the fee remains in effect through 2035 — an unlikely scenario after Trump’s election — it would prevent 1.2 million metric tons of methane from entering the atmosphere, according to the EPA. That is the equivalent of taking nearly 8 million gasoline-powered cars off the nation’s roads for a year, the agency said.

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