Energy

A federal judge is delaying a decision on whether to halt operations of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to allow its operator to provide more briefing on the economic impacts of a possible shutdown and to weigh how DAPL’s planned bid for an en banc review of a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ruling would affect his authority.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral argument April 13 in refiners’ challenge to the Trump EPA’s approval of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) for year-round use, an authorization that is key to ethanol producers’ hopes of maintaining sales in the face of possible long-term declines in liquid fuel demand.

Major environmental groups are urging President Joe Biden to set a “clear and aggressive schedule” for EPA to curb climate and conventional pollutants from power plants using air, water and waste laws, underscoring the pressures facing the fossil fuel-fired plants regardless of whether Congress enacts clean energy measures.

A coalition of more than 400 environmental groups is petitioning EPA to regulate oil and gas industry emissions of the greenhouse gas methane as a volatile organic compound (VOC) in Clean Air Act permits to curb not only methane but also ozone, part of environmentalists’ growing push for “multipollutant” air rules for specific sectors.