The oil sector and Trump campaign are seizing on comments by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden urging a “transition” from the industry, in an effort to make Biden’s climate change stance a liability for Democrats up and down the ballot with less than two weeks before voting ends in the Nov. 3 election.
Region 6 is reviewing a request from Texas to allow the state to issue Clean Water Act discharge permits for certain oil and gas activities, increasing state control over drilling activities in the energy-rich region.
A district court is grappling with the remedy for its earlier finding that the Army Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act when approving a key permit for the Dakota Access pipeline.
States and environmental groups are outlining arguments they plan to make in litigation against EPA’s rollback of leak detection and other emissions requirements for oil and gas facilities, as the court fight takes shape over the agency’s rulemaking “technical” changes to Obama-era new source performance standards (NSPS).
States and environmentalists opposed to the Trump administration’s rollback of Obama-era oil and gas methane emissions limits say in new legal filings that the action violates the Clean Air Act.
EPA is urging a federal district court in Pennsylvania to dismiss environmentalists’ lawsuit over the agency’s new Clean Water Act (CWA) rule that narrowed the scope of states’ review of water quality impacts from federally permitted projects, arguing the rule can only be challenged when it is applied and that the plaintiffs lack standing.
A federal district court has vacated the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Obama-era “waste prevention” rule targeting emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas facilities on public lands, finding the policy intrudes on EPA’s and states’ Clean Air Act authority and that the development of the rule was arbitrary.
“The merits of the parties’ positions are not so clear as to warrant summary action,” says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments Oct. 8 in litigation over EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule to reduce greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, with critics claiming ACE is unlawful because it does not significantly cut GHGs and could boost other pollutants.
California and 19 other mostly Democratic-led states are urging a federal appeals court to ignore EPA’s call to grant the agency deference and uphold its policy easing methane air rules for oil and gas drilling, countering that the action is unlawful and reiterating calls for judges to grant an emergency stay of the regulatory decision.
