President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday reportedly plans to roll back regulation of methane emissions by the oil and gas industry ― a major contributor to climate change. The proposed rule change reflects the Trump administration view that the government overstepped its authority with mandates during the Obama administration that oil and gas companies take steps to repair methane leaks, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the rollback. “The purpose of this rule is to get to the fundamental basis of whether [methane] should have been regulated in the first place,” Anne Idsal, the acting assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, told the Journal. “It’s not about whether we’re doing the maximum we can or should do to deal with” climate change.

Carlos Barria / Reuters President Donald Trump, who said he believes global warming is a hoax, has been dismantling environmental regulations.

Idsal added that she doesn’t believe “that there’s going to be some big climate concern here.” Many others ― including some oil and gas companies ― would disagree. “This is extraordinarily harmful,” Rachel Kyte, the United Nations special representative on sustainable energy, told The New York Times. “Just at a time when the federal government’s job should be to help localities and states move faster toward cleaner energy and a cleaner economy, just at that moment when speed and scale is what’s at stake, the government is walking off the field.”

Orjan F. Ellingvag via Getty Images The primary component of natural gas is methane, which is odorless when it comes directly out of the gas well.