US EPA and gas can makers

Gas can vents

Before

A plastic gas can with a spout and a little vent cap, so the gas poured instead of glugging.

The fix

EPA rules made cans spill-proof and self-closing. Self-closing vents were allowed, but most makers dropped vents entirely.

Then

Sixteen years of slow, glugging pours followed. In July 2025 the EPA wrote to can makers encouraging self-closing vents, and said confusion over its own rules was why the vents had disappeared.