Biden Admin Is ‘Having Fun’ Writing New Regulations, EPA Chief Says

Biden Admin Is ‘Having Fun’ Writing New Regulations, EPA Chief Says

John Hugh DeMastri on March 9, 2023

Regulators from across the Biden administration are “having fun” working together to write new regulations and develop new programs with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston Thursday.

Regan was discussing the implementation of the Biden administration’s signature climate law, the IRA, with interviewer Daniel Yergin, an S&P global vice chairman. The EPA administrator noted that the EPA was “lucky” that the regulatory burden was not “solely ours” and that many agencies, including the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Interior (DOI), were collaborating with the EPA to implement the administration’s climate goals.

“Is that … could that be a recipe for regulatory tangles?” asked Yergin.

“No actually, I think it’s good. Number one is the theme that I’m going to go back to which is we all like each other and get along,” Regan responded. “And so, we’re having fun, partnering on regulations that span our agencies because we know that the products we’re putting out will not just be beneficial to one.”

The IRA will help the EPA’s new rules to “be much more innovative, you know, much more aggressive in terms of the targets, but not towards the regulated community” said Regan. “[W]hen we think about our methane regulations, we’re going to be able to go further and faster because of [the] IRA.”

President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year, released earlier Thursday, would cut all oil and gas subsidies from the federal budget, which the White House estimated would save roughly $31 billion annually.