Natural Gas

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is rejecting a push by the federal government and the oil sector to rehear a panel ruling allowing cities’ climate nuisance cases to proceed in state court, echoing the court’s decision from a week ago that also rejected calls to reconsider its ruling in a separate nuisance suit.

The first state compliance plan under EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) climate rule for existing power plants is expected “soon,” according to the agency’s de facto air chief, who described it as a chance for her office to demonstrate how it will work with states to implement the rule.

EPA is defending its right to enforce federal air toxics regulations against a Utah gas services company in an Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) dispute testing the limits of an earlier consent decree that the company claims shields certain equipment from agency air rules, a case that may set a precedent for similar decrees.

As legal experts are debating the implications of a major court ruling upending the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) use of “tolling orders” to delay administration rehearing of gas infrastructure approvals, the commission secured more time to decide whether to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.