Natural gas can never be clean ether, and the cost of sealing up the supply chain is more expensive than just drilling more, some states have tried to put in laws to set a minimum leak rate and natural gas companies lobbied to prevent the bills from passing. Far from the first example of natural gas companies lobbying against laws that would cut in to their profits.
Natural gas as a bridge fuel was a distraction to divert the public away from actual solutions. It’s worse for climate change than coal is and plenty of in-depth reports, papers, and research bear this out.