Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Scott Weiser). Here’s an excerpt:
Battle lines have been drawn in a fight between oil-producing red states and environmentally-driven blue states over a new regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency…Led by the attorneys general of Texas and Oklahoma, 26 states are suing the EPA over a final rule published March 8 that, in part, sets new regulations for existing methane infrastructure. Twenty other states, including Colorado and the District of Columbia, filed a motion to intervene in the case in support of the new federal regulation Tuesday…
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the new rule must be defended in a Monday news release announcing the state’s intervention in the Texas case.
“These protections must remain in place at the federal level for effective oversight of methane emissions from surrounding states; that’s why we are committed to defending the federal methane rule,” Weiser said in the release…
The new rule from the EPA regulates methane emissions from both new sources and existing infrastructure, something the EPA has never done before. This raises the question of whether the EPA has legal authority to expand its statutory mandate without asking Congress for permission. The “major questions” doctrine states that federal agencies must have explicit permission to newly regulate politically and economically significant issues, rather than assuming they have unbridled regulatory authority.