WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are moving to undo a key element of the Obama administration’s effort to reduce the oil and gas industry’s effect on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Legislation is being readied in the House to overturn an executive order from last year cutting the amount of methane — a particularly potent greenhouse gas — that is vented and flared from drilling sites on federal and tribal lands. The bill, along with another piece of legislation overturning an order protecting streams and wildlife around coal mines, is set to be introduced today.

“These are abusive, last-minute regulations that are grossly inconsistent with congressional intent,” Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a conference call Friday. “They will impose a real and unnecessary cost on American people and communities.”

After last week’s Republican retreat in Philadelphia headlined by President Donald Trump, party leaders were gearing up to roll back federal regulation at large. And with Trump’s public skepticism that climate change constitutes the global crisis that scientists maintain, greenhouse gas emission rules are expected to be near the top of the list.

Most immediately, Republicans plan to revive a little-used law signed by former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s that gave Congress the authority to overturn any regulation within 60 days of publication — a measure designed to keep presidential administrations from tacking on regulations on their way out of the White House.

Known as the Congressional Review Act, it has only been used once in the past two decades. But now Republicans want to use it to tackle rules on everything from overtime pay to climate change.

Environmentalists are already stepping up campaigns to block the legislation in the Senate, where Republicans maintain a thin 52-48 majority.

“The math is hard, but it’s not settled,” said Chase Huntley, a senior government relations director at the Wilderness Society, a conservation group.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that methane is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in terms of its warming effect on the atmosphere. While emitted by everything from landfills to cattle, the highest proportion — 33 percent — comes from oil and gas systems.

Last year, the Bureau of Land Management said it was time to update its decades-old drilling rules, arguing that it was for the good of the planet and would slow the waste of a valuable public resource in methane — the principal component of natural gas.

But for drillers, either burning methane or allowing it to escape is a part of doing business. Getting pipelines built to remote drilling locations requires investment and approval from government agencies. And with natural gas selling at historic lows, the incentive to capture that gas is reduced.

Nevertheless, with global pressure to address climate change building, some companies have increased efforts to seek out methane leaks and reduce emissions. Since 1990, overall methane emissions have come down 6 percent, according to EPA.

Oil and gas industry groups such as the Western Energy Alliance have long fought methane regulations, arguing that they add billions of dollars in cost, raising energy prices while reducing oil field jobs. But the oil lobby faces opposition from a small but burgeoning industry that sells sensors and provides manned inspection teams armed with infrared goggles to root out leaks on drilling sites.

In Colorado, which has some of the strictest methane emissions rules in the country, Houston-based Rebellion Photonics has made a business selling automated gas-detection systems. CEO Allison Sawyer said the rush to fix leaks has led to rising demand for maintenance staff in the oil fields.

“It’s worked really well in Colorado,” she said. “They’re high-paying, blue-collar jobs that can never be exported.”

Sawyer and others in her industry are working with environmentalists to press their case to Congress. But they will have to flip some Republicans, with Bishop expressing confidence Friday that he has the votes in the House and the Senate to get his legislation passed.

The Bureau of Land Management’s venting and flaring rule is one in a series of methane emissions rules ordered by the Obama administration.

Bishop said he planned to “address” two similar methane rules adopted by the EPA but had not yet decided how. A rule relating to emissions from new wells is too old to be addressed by the Congressional Review Act. Overturning it would likely require an executive order from Trump.

The other rule, for existing wells, is still in development at the agency and is not expected to be completed by incoming EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

“We’re a little ahead of how many of those I want to do administratively and how many I want to do legislatively,” Bishop said. “The method I’m going to use in the future is not quite clear.”

James.osborne@chron.com

Twitter.com/osborneja