By Steve Holland and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will use a campaign swing through Texas on Tuesday to announce a plan to ease methane rules for oil and gas producers, seeking to show voters he is working to bring down gasoline prices a week before the midterm elections.
The move is the latest in a string of pre-election steps by Trump to address fuel prices, which have become a political liability for Republicans amid the war with Iran. By pairing the methane
rollback with rallies for his hand-picked Senate candidate Ken Paxton, Trump is trying to turn energy policy into votes in a longtime Republican stronghold.
The trip marks Trump's third visit to Texas this month to mobilize support for Paxton, with rallies planned in Corpus Christi and Lubbock. Paxton is locked in a close race with Democrat James Talarico, and a loss next Tuesday would complicate the Republican Party's path to retaining its slim Senate majority.
Trump plans to announce an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to roll back Biden-era rules that required companies to fix leaky equipment and regularly check wells for escaping methane, a potent greenhouse gas, a White House official said. The administration is casting it as a way to produce more energy and lower costs.
The plan would give relief to small, low-output wells and end a program that used outside groups to report large methane leaks, the official said. It would also ease rules aimed at phasing out the routine burning off of gas at oil wells.
Trump's repeated trips to Texas are part of a broader push in Republican-leaning states, which were expected to be safely in hand but have instead become midterm battlegrounds. His October campaign blitz has also taken him to Oklahoma, Alabama, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina and Mississippi.
Trump has publicly criticized his longtime ally, calling Paxton "a pain in the ass sometimes," while making it clear he prefers him to Talarico. Tech billionaire Elon Musk and other donors are pouring hundreds of millions into a late effort to rescue Paxton's campaign.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Deepa Babington)
