A federal court issued another blow to the Trump administration’s aggressive deregulatory agenda when it ruled on Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must immediately reinstate an Obama-era pollution rule that sets methane emission standards for the oil and natural gas industry.
The Monday ruling, issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was celebrated by green groups that filed a suit challenging an EPA attempt to delay implementation of the rule. The “issuance of the mandate by the full D.C. Circuit protects families and communities across America under clean air safeguards that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt sought to unlawfully tear down,” said Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) lead attorney Peter Zalzal.
“Trump and Pruitt have repeatedly overreached in their efforts to undermine environmental protections and prop up the oil and gas industry.”
—Joanne Spalding, Sierra Club
“The court’s order is a victory for our communities’ health and the safety of our climate. Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt’s attempt to delay the implementation of these crucial protections had no basis in law, and we are glad to see their effort to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry fail once again,” said Joanne Spalding, Sierra Club’s chief climate counsel. “Trump and Pruitt have repeatedly overreached in their efforts to undermine environmental protections and prop up the oil and gas industry.”
As part of Trump and Pruitt’s attempts to roll back climate regulations—which have caused multiple federal scientists to resign from the EPA and condemn the administration’s environmentally destructive policies—in June, Pruitt attempted to halt the rule while the agency considers a formal repeal.
The 2016 rule was established as part of former President Barack Obama’s second-term climate regulations, and seeks to curb the emission of methane—a primary component of natural gas that has been on the rise due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and that has a greater impact than carbon dioxide.
A coalition of environmental groups, cities, and states, led by the EDF, sued the EPA over the delay, which a federal court deemed unlawful on July 3.
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