Two major laws passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden provide new

money and new requirements for reducing potent methane emissions, including those

coming from abandoned oil and gas wells.

Now the federal government has started awarding some contracts for capping those wells.

But the election could impact whether this work will continue,

since former President Donald Trump wants to reverse many rules and

recently referred to climate concerns as a scam. Science correspondent Miles

O'Brien reports from the battleground state of Pennsylvania on the larger scope of the problem.

Deep in the Allegheny National Forest of Northwestern Pennsylvania.

I see something through there, yeah.

Melissa Ostroth is blazing. I see something through there, yeah.

Melissa Ostroth is blazing trails down narrow roads,

through thick brush, hoping to see the methane for the trees.

All right, Melissa, we have to go this way.

It's not through here to get around there.

Oh, this just looks so much easier.

Nothing easy about this work.

She's with an environmental advocacy group called Earthworks.

Operating a hundred thousand dollar thermal imaging camera able to record plumes of

hydrocarbons, she's hunting for methane or natural gas, often found

along with oil and often found leaking out of oil wells, active or not.

You can hear and see the bubbling

...