EU methane rules under pressure as US gas lobby and Trump administration push for delay

EU ambassadors are set to try for a third time on Friday to agree on delaying the bloc’s methane rules for oil and gas imports, with options of one or three years under discussion. The rules, adopted in 2024, were due to start in two months but ended up on the chopping block in October. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and a major target of climate regulation and industry lobbying. According to the International Energy Agency, capturing methane is one of the “quickest and cheapest ways to curb global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Commission faced pressure from US gas lobby and Trump administration

For months the European Commission vowed not to reopen the rules, but documents show it tried to handle pressure by offering technical fixes to industry and Washington. This continued even after it became clear the Trump administration wanted the rules gone. At a late February summit in Pittsburgh co-hosted by US gas lobby group LNG Allies, EU top energy official Ditte Juul Jørgensen toasted a decade of transatlantic gas trade. Her keynote recalled the first US LNG cargo to Europe ten years earlier, from Louisiana on a ship named Creole Spirit, which she said embodied “both the energy heritage of Louisiana and the new spirit of transatlantic partnership.”

Jørgensen later sat on a panel on EU methane rules with US gas lobbyists. LNG Allies called her “a true friend of US LNG” who “graciously accepted nearly every speaking invitation we extended.” Jørgensen has steered the EU through the Russian gas crisis and a more than fivefold increase in US LNG imports since 2019. She is also tasked with defending the methane rules against attacks from the US oil and gas industry and the Trump administration. The speech was among 55 documents released by the commission’s energy department under a freedom of information request by climate research group ARIA, shared with EUobserver. The documents include briefings, speeches, and emails from commission dealings with US officials and industry between March 2025 and May 2026.