He’s been vacationing at his beach home in Delaware, and staying out of the spotlight.
So by all accounts, it kind of feels like President Joe Biden has mailed in the last few week of his presidency.
But Biden just pulled one, final move in an effort to stick it to the American people — in the form of a massive tax increase that takes effect immediately.
On Tuesday, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a new rule of taxing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
Biden imposes a new methane emissions tax as he prepares to leave the White House https://t.co/pQz7MpY58P
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) November 13, 2024
According to a Fox News report, the new tax was born out of Biden’s sweeping climate legislation passed by Congress, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which included a Waste Emissions Charge provision.
According to the EPA, the fee will start at $900 per metric ton of methane emitted over a specific performance level during 2024. In subsequent years, the fee will increase.
In 2025, it will grow to $1,200 per metric ton.
In 2026, it will increase to $1,500 per ton.
Meanwhile, each subsequent year after that, the fee will continue to rise.
“The final Waste Emissions Charge is the latest in a series of actions under President Biden’s methane strategy to improve efficiency in the oil and gas sector, support American jobs, protect clean air, and reinforce U.S. leadership on the global stage,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
Shortly after taking office in 2021, Biden signed a law repealing a Trump-era action that rescinded stricter methane-emissions standards imposed under then-President Barack Obama.
While climate change advocates, such as the Clean Air Task Force, have praised Biden’s rule regulating methane emissions, critics like Steve Milloy, a fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, deemed the action as “irrelevant.”
Milloy said that because upwards of 95% or more of the greenhouse gasses trapped by the earth’s atmosphere are water vapor and carbon dioxide, little to no room remains for methane to be stored.
Milloy also said the new methane emissions rule will likely be ineffective, considering it targets the oil and gas sector but not the agricultural sector as well.
“The largest source of methane is actually microbes,” Milloy pointed out — as opposed to man-made power plants. Microbes are tiny organisms that live in cow’s stomachs, agricultural fields and wetlands, according to reports.
In other words, the newly-levied tax is taxing the wrong industry.
North Carolina Republican Rep. Greg Murphy, who was endorsed by Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions during his bid for re-election this year, echoed that going after the oil and gas industry with this latest tax will serve to “raise costs and prevent investment.”
However, with the new Trump administration taking office in January 2024, the likelihood of these taxes lasting seems slim.
“Thankfully, this insanity will end in January,” Murphy said.
Trump has suggested he would repeal many of the green energy initiatives implanted within Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
This week, Trump nominated former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to be his next EPA chief, who has yet to comment on the matter.