The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plans to continue regulating methane emissions at oil and gas sites could complicate its legal defense of a broader rule to end climate regulation. Congress explicitly directed EPA to govern methane pollution at oil industry facilities through the Clean Air Act, and the agency has indicated that it would keep a Biden-era methane rule on the books with changes to deadlines and other requirements that the industry has asked for.
Bracewell’s Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA’s air chief under former President George W. Bush, told E&E News Congress’ 2021 Congressional Review Act resolution invalidating the first Trump EPA’s repeal of the Obama methane rules gives the agency the legal authority it needs to retain the Biden rules without any new analysis of endangerment.
“If I were at EPA, I would just point to that and say, ‘Congress said we couldn’t issue a new rule that is substantially the same as the [2020] rule revoking the methane standards,’ and that would be certainly a legal rationale for leaving it in place even though they’ve eliminated the 2009 endangerment finding,” he said.
