The Trump administration official main an effort to loosen guidelines on methane air pollution was an unnamed creator of key trade arguments in opposition to those self same guidelines simply 4 years in the past when he was an oil and fuel lobbyist.
Aaron Szabo, an assistant administrator on the Environmental Safety Company, is listed in PDF metadata because the creator of a January 2022 remark letter objecting to proposed controls on methane emissions within the oil and fuel trade. The letter was submitted to the EPA by the American Exploration and Manufacturing Council, which represents a few of the trade’s largest emitters of the planet-warming fuel, together with ConocoPhillips, Diversified Power and Hilcorp. Szabo’s title doesn’t seem within the doc itself, however it may be present in data embedded by the software program used to create the PDF file.
Szabo was registered as a lobbyist for one of many AXPC’s lesser-known members, Ovintiv, when he drafted the arguments in opposition to the restrictions, which have been finalized later within the Biden administration. He has additionally lobbied for different purchasers within the oil and chemical substances sectors. Whereas he didn’t conceal that work throughout his affirmation final yr as head of the EPA’s Workplace of Air and Radiation, he described it in phrases that prevented any point out of efforts to affect local weather coverage: “I realized how regulated entities adjust to the federal authorities’s 1000’s of rules and insurance policies. I additionally noticed firsthand that the individuals working in these corporations wish to make sure the atmosphere is correctly protected.”
In his present function overseeing federal local weather guidelines on the EPA, Szabo has been soliciting enter and even particular regulatory language from oil trade teams that stand to realize from watered-down methane guidelines, in response to inside emails, calendar entries and data of closed-door conversations reviewed by ProPublica.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the rating Democrat on the Senate’s Atmosphere and Public Works Committee, pointed to Szabo’s earlier lobbying as proof that the EPA had successfully been captured by the oil and fuel trade. “Now he can do Huge Oil’s soiled work from contained in the EPA,” Whitehouse advised ProPublica in an e mail.
As a part of its plan to “unleash American power,” the Trump administration has waged an unprecedented marketing campaign in opposition to rules on fossil fuels, the principle trigger of worldwide warming. One among its largest strikes was to repeal the “endangerment discovering” that categorised greenhouse gases as pollution — the premise for the EPA’s authority to restrict emissions in any respect. Relatively than throw out the methane guidelines fully, nonetheless, Szabo’s workplace is working to revise them, emails and paperwork present. It has already delayed lots of the compliance deadlines till subsequent yr.
Methane, the principle element of pure fuel, is a local weather superpollutant, liable for one-third of the rise in international temperatures since preindustrial instances, in response to the United Nations Atmosphere Programme. When it escapes into the ambiance with out being burned for power, it may possibly lure 80 instances extra warmth than carbon dioxide, analysis exhibits. The oil and fuel enterprise is the biggest industrial supply of U.S. methane emissions, partially due to leaks from poorly maintained gear. Whether it is uneconomical to gather the fuel on the market, corporations typically deliberately launch it in a course of often known as venting.
To chop down on methane discharges, President Joe Biden’s EPA imposed a lot stricter controls on oil and fuel operations, together with requiring elevated monitoring for leaks and gear upgrades. In response to company estimates, the brand new guidelines would have lowered the trade’s methane emissions by practically 80%. And, on condition that the fuel breaks down comparatively rapidly, this is able to have been one of many quickest methods to cut back international warming.
Trade teams pushed again. Within the January 2022 letter that Szabo helped to draft, the AXPC used the phrase “burdensome” 10 instances to explain the brand new necessities and pushed for extra “flexibility” to permit for cheaper leak-detection strategies and fewer frequent monitoring, amongst different requests.
The group additionally forged doubt on the principles’ anticipated local weather and well being advantages, highlighting what it referred to as “the significance of speaking the numerous uncertainties throughout the estimates.” The AXPC’s chief govt, Anne Bradbury, added in a later assertion that the principles risked “undercutting US manufacturing within the close to and long-term — which can result in elevated power prices and lowered power safety.”
The AXPC failed to steer the Biden administration to vary its strategy. But it surely renewed its push after President Donald Trump returned to workplace and ordered federal businesses to “droop, revise, or rescind” any “undue burden” on home power manufacturing.
Szabo, after two years as a fellow on the Trump-aligned America First Coverage Institute, joined the administration on Day 1 as an adviser to EPA chief Lee Zeldin. He instantly signaled that he deliberate to weaken the rules he had argued in opposition to as a lobbyist. His employees met with AXPC representatives as early as Feb. 6, 2025, lower than three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, to debate its petition to “rethink” the methane guidelines, in response to emails and calendar entries obtained by means of public data requests and shared with ProPublica by Fieldnotes, a watchdog group that investigates the oil and fuel trade. His employees went on to satisfy with them at the very least twice extra, and Szabo himself was listed as a required attendee for a gathering with Bradbury final July.
The AXPC didn’t reply to emails from ProPublica searching for remark.
In response to data of closed-door conversations reviewed by ProPublica, different oil trade representatives have described their conferences with Szabo and his employees as extremely favorable to their pursuits. “Mr. Szabo assured us that the EPA is targeted on these [methane] guidelines and doing every part that may be finished to restrict the injury they may trigger,” the management of a serious commerce group wrote to its members final yr in an inside publication.
Lee Fuller, of the Unbiased Petroleum Affiliation of America, additionally spoke glowingly about his assembly with Szabo’s workplace on a convention name with trade representatives final yr.
“It was one of many extra fascinating conferences that we’ve ever had, simply because they have been instantly keen to speak to us,” he mentioned. “And so they’re additionally instantly keen to speak about issues that we’ve been making an attempt to get them to do for years, and so they’ve by no means even let it sort of come onto the radar display.”
The IPAA declined to reply particular questions from ProPublica however linked to a September 2025 letter wherein the group publicly requested the EPA for exceptions to the methane guidelines.
Szabo’s workplace has even invited oil trade teams to supply particular wording for the revised guidelines. “We had a name a number of weeks again re. pneumatics on momentary gear,” Mike O’Connor of the American Petroleum Institute wrote to an EPA official, referring to gadgets which are a serious supply of methane emissions. “EPA had informally requested enter on this matter and any steered reg. textual content language. We’re offering the connected draft doc as casual enter to EPA’s inquiry.” The draft referred to as for numerous exemptions.
The shift in priorities underneath Szabo may also be seen in communications from the EPA itself. In a June 2025 e mail reviewed by ProPublica, an company official requested O’Connor to satisfy and focus on various leak-detection strategies. Echoing the language within the AXPC remark that Szabo helped to draft, the official spoke of “the extra flexibility we want to pursue.”
“I believe their agenda was, from what I may inform, to do what trade needed,” one former EPA official, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain confidential discussions, mentioned of Szabo and different Trump appointees on the company.
“Since when is it a foul factor for public officers to ask the general public what they suppose?” the EPA mentioned in an emailed assertion, referring to Szabo’s interactions with oil trade representatives. Szabo “fulfilled all his moral obligations to the letter. He met with EPA profession ethics employees when he began at EPA to make sure he’s conscious of and complies with federal ethics necessities.”
Szabo’s affinities are hardly a secret. He’s thanked by title within the EPA chapter of Challenge 2025, the deregulatory blueprint for the second Trump administration. As a part of the nomination course of for his appointment on the EPA, he additionally submitted ethics disclosures itemizing oil, pure fuel and chemical substances corporations he had lobbied for.
Nonetheless, at his affirmation listening to on March 5 final yr, he repeatedly declined to elaborate on his function in Challenge 2025, past saying he supplied “basic recommendation and ideas” on the Clear Air Act.
