The catalyst. In March 2025, Congress used the Congressional Review Act to kill the EPA's Waste Emissions Charge — the per-ton fee on excess methane the Inflation Reduction Act created, which was set to hit $1,500/ton before the statutory start date got pushed to 2034. That fee is dead for now. But the regulatory scaffolding it was layered on top of — EPA's NSPS OOOOb/OOOOc rules requiring operators to survey for leaks, repair them on a schedule, and phase out routine flaring at new and modified wells — is still on the books, still being implemented by states, and still driving operators to buy monitoring, vapor-recovery, and leak-detection-and-repair (LDAR) services whether or not a federal invoice ever arrives. Add buyer-side pressure — LNG offtake contracts and EU import rules increasingly demand documented low-methane-intensity gas — and the compliance-services market survives the fee's repeal intact. The money moves toward whoever sells the sensors, vapor-recovery units, and software that prove compliance, not toward whoever collects the tax.
Who cashes in.