Methane, carbon dioxide’s lesser-known cousin, is a big and growing problem for the planet. The chief component of natural gas, methane is also emitted during oil drilling. While it only accounts for 11 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., this chemical packs a potent dose of warming, 84 times more effective than CO2 at absorbing heat. Methane breaks down more quickly and poses fewer direct risks to human health. But it’s already contributed to more than 30 percent of the climate change the planet has experienced.

You wouldn’t have known any of this from the relative lack of attention paid to methane in efforts to combat climate change—until just recently. In March, President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the two countries would team up to slash methane emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2025 and to regulate emissions from existing oil and gas operations, which account for a large majority of methane leaks. In April, Gina McCarthy, the EPA’s chief administrator, named tackling methane emissions as a top priority for the agency in 2016. And in coming weeks—if not days—the EPA will present its finalized regulations to control emissions from new oil and gas wells.

The agency has only just begun to grapple with regulating the oil and gas infrastructure that already exists (and is projected to account for 90 percent of projected methane emissions in 2018). But the rules for new operations will represent a crucial step forward. Though oil and gas drilling and exploration release the majority of methane pollution in this country, until recently federal methane regulation had mostly been either voluntary or tied to other air standards.

Because of the chemical’s capacity for warming, the EPA’s restrictions on new and existing methane sources in the oil and gas industry could be the most consequential move to slow climate change that we’ll see over the next several years. And the rules come at a propitious time politically, several months after a ruptured natural gas well at Aliso Canyon, in the Porter Ranch section of Los Angeles, caused the largest methane leak in U.S. history. The incident has set off public alarms about the dangers of methane. But even before the leak, nearly 70 percent of registered voters said they favored the EPA’s proposed methane rules. If there is one thing Americans can agree on in a fractious election year, combatting methane, it seems, is it.

If there is one thing Americans can agree on in a fractious election year, combatting methane, it seems, is it.

The majority of methane emissions comes from the industry that produces what is now America’s largest power source: natural gas. In 2014, natural gas systems released 176 million metric tons of methane, nearly a quarter of total emissions. The second largest source was cattle digestion, which accounted for 22.5 percent of emissions. (Petroleum systems contributed 9.3 percent.)