Attorneys General of 24 States Ask Supreme Court to Block EPA’s Methane Reduction Rule
29th August 2024
The EPA has said the new standards are part of efforts to sharply reduce emissions of methane and “other harmful air pollution from oil and natural gas operations.”
Led by the state of Oklahoma, attorneys general from states including Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and Virginia filed an emergency appeal to prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from enforcing the rule that went into effect this year.
In their Aug. 27 filing, the states argued that while the federal government has the authority to set emissions limits, the rule outlines specific technologies, processes, and methods that the agency believes states must employ to achieve certain emission-reduction targets, among other requirements. The “EPA did not limit itself to its statutory role for existing sources and then leave it to the States to adopt appropriate standards of performance,” they said.
Furthermore the “rule’s ‘presumptive standards’ are onerous, imposing costs on the oil and gas industries that will—as even EPA admits—inevitably be passed onto consumers across the country,” the states wrote.