The latest piece in President Obama’s climate agenda soon could become the next target for major legal action, said a senior official with a trade group representing oil and gas producers in the West.
The Western Energy Alliance is “exploring litigation” over the Environmental Protection Agency’s methane reduction rules for new oil and gas fracking wells, said Kathleen Sgemma, vice president for federal affairs and communications for the group.
The alliance has been involved in litigation on a number of regulations that western oil and gas producers say would hobble the industry.
Sgemma said the alliance was successful in suing against the first round of fracking regulations that the Bureau of Land Management tried to impose, winning a federal court injunction to stay the rules until a decision on the merits is made.
The latest methane rules seek to cut the potent, but short-lived, greenhouse gas from new fracking wells, as part of Obama’s broad agenda to fight global warming. But Sgemma said she doesn’t believe EPA has laid out a strong enough argument to justify the rules.
“They have to show it’s providing a public good, and we believe they haven’t shown that on this methane rule,” Sgemma told the Washington Examiner.
Many in the industry argue that the rules could raise the cost for producers that are already hurting from the low price of crude oil, which has forced the industry to lay off tens of thousands of workers.
The EPA finalized the rules for new fracking wells last month, while beginning the process of developing regulations for existing wells.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morissey, who is leading a 30-state lawsuit against EPA’s climate change rules for power plants, also is examining the possibility of suing the agency over the methane rules.
“Rest assured my office will review this regulation line by line and we stand ready to take appropriate action,” Morissey said last month.
