Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is taking on the EPA in another fight and this time he has the support of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.
The Attorney General led a 26-state coalition opposed to the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules to reduce methane emissions, rules that specifically target the oil and gas industry. Drummond and the other attorneys general filed a petition in the U.S Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit and asked for the rule to be blocked.
Together with the DEQ, he contends the new emissions rules will cripple not only Oklahoma’s energy industry but its economy too.
“The Biden administration’s methane emissions rule is a blatant attack on America’s oil and gas industry,” he argued in the petition
“If allowed to take full effect, the rule would cost Oklahoma countless jobs, devastate the oil and gas industry, and force us to pay significantly higher energy prices.”
The new rule, formally known as EPA Rule 0000b, took effect May 7. The EPA claims it will reduce the nation’s largest industrial source of methane.
The EPA says the new rule will sharply reduce the nation’s largest industrial source of methane, which is a greenhouse gas considered more potent than carbon dioxide.
The Journal Record reported the DEQ is worried the EPA rule will turn into a move to bypass or get around Oklahoma’s authority.
“It has the potential to negatively affect the economies of rural Oklahoma communities dependent on the oil and gas industry, DEQ communications director Erin Hatfield told the Journal Record.
The rule is also challenged and opposed by the Petroleum Alliance or Oklahoma which contends it will add to oil and and natural gas production costs and might even put some small producers out of business.
“We encourage EPA to develop rules that are reasonable, practical, and economical to implement, and provide compliance flexibility to meet the needs of all sizes of oil and gas businesses, especially small oil and gas operators,” the organization said in a letter to the agency, reported the Journal Record.
Other states that joined Oklahoma in the challenge are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Source: Journal Record