Republicans in 24 states have petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to halt a Biden administration plan to reduce methane emissions. Officials in the Republican states, led by Oklahoma, added to a series of emergency appeals challenging the so-called “environmental” regulations.
The states are asking the high court to pause an Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) rule that went into effect earlier this year that the agency says will cut methane emissions from oil and gas operations by nearly 80% through 2038. Central to this attempted cut in methane emissions is creating a disadvantage for American oil and gas producers, compared to oil and gas production around the globe.
For example, China and India, two countries in which nearly 40 percent of the globe’s population resides, have no serious plans to cut methane or any other climate warming gases. Additionally, the primary exporters of oil to California ports, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Ecuador, have no plans to adhere to the Biden administration’s strict requirements.
When Washington D.C. clamps down too hard on industry to “combat climate change,” when no other oil producing countries are clamping down on their producers, American oil producers end up with higher costs of production and government compliance. This creates a competitive disadvantage for American oil and natural gas producers and hands money to America’s competitors.
The latest filing with SCOTUS is part of a broader effort by the groups battling Biden administration environmental regulations, a push that has repeatedly resonated with the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in recent years.
Many of the same states and industry groups have filed other emergency appeals in recent weeks challenging different regulations, including those to curb power plant pollution and mercury emissions. An appeals court in Washington, DC, previously denied the states’ request to put the new methane regulations on hold.
The states accused the EPA of “thrashing around for tools to address this administration’s concerns about climate change.” They told the Supreme Court that the EPA’s requirement that states design plans within a two-year period would be “impossible.”
While California continues to attack and assail its oil industry and its oil workers, it is refreshing to see nearly half the other states in the Union battling against ill-conceived and aspirational ideas that do not work in the real world.