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Court Blocks EPA Effort To Suspend Obama-Era Methane Rule (pbs.org)
Michael Biesecker reports via PBS: A federal appeals court in Washington ruled Monday that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped his authority in trying to delay implementation of a new rule requiring oil and gas companies to monitor and reduce methane leaks. In a split decision, the three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the EPA to move forward with the Obama-era requirement that aims to reduce planet-warming emissions from oil and gas operations. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced in April that he would delay by 90 days the deadline for oil and gas companies to follow the new rule, so that the agency could reconsider the measure. Last month, Pruitt announced he intended to extend the 90-day stay for two years. In a detailed 31-page ruling, the court disagreed with Pruitt's contention that industry groups had not had sufficient opportunity to comment before the 2016 rule was enacted. The judges also said Pruitt lacked the legal authority to delay the rule from taking effect.
Does the EPA go to court try to make the envirnment worse.
Imagine if every government threw out everything agreed by the last government, just to score political points.
Really Pruitt needs to be more professional here. Country before party.
Pruitt is trying to create a DEFACTO status quo bypassing the EPAs rules for review. He's making the decision FIRST, then implementing the process to make that decision SECOND.
He can't do that.
Imagine if an election board could simply decide to suspend an election while it decides how to secure the election from Russian hackers? Or Trump could simply decide to suspend implementation of any Congress passed law while he decides how it should be 'best' implmented.
It's similar to the Visa thing. Trump cannot change the laws beyond the limits Congress has set him. This is why the Supreme Court has done this weird thing of allowing the legal part of Trump's travel ban through while literally making the whole of the Executive branch liable for contempt of court if they follow it the non-legal bit. Normally Supremes would strike down the whole Executive order and President would rewrite it to comply, but Trump would just throw a tantrum, so they enjoined the Executive branch instead. Putting the grownups in charge.
If the EPA wants to delay enforcement then would not that be within their authority as an executive agency?
Not necessarily. There is a rule-making process which it must legally follow. The process is there to protect citizens from arbitrary enforcement of laws and rules. With all its flaws, the US is still a nation of laws, which even its regulatory agencies must follow. If you don't like the rules, you still have to follow the process to remove them. If you don't like the laws, you still have to follow the law-making process to undo them. Countries that don't follow law- or rule-making process have a name: they are called dictatorships.
I don't know whether delaying enforcement is within the legally required process or not, I'd guess that's why the court is stepping in.
Pruitt is trying to delay this for two years while he follows a process to change the rules. Two years. He has his department and its rules, and he has to follow those rules to make that change. Court has ruled correctly, this two year delay is nothing but a defacto cancelling of the rule. It's a Pruitt power grab.
If he wants his department rules to be easier, then he can go to Trump. If Trump tries to ease them beyond Executive branch powers, then courts will strike that down and he has to go to Congress. The court is what stops little emperors like Pruitt making their little empires.
Trump's travel ban is similar. Trump cannot simply ignore the Immigration and Nationality Act/1965 or the Constitution for 90 days while he reviews them. If he wants the law changed, he has to go to Congress, and propose the law change, and they have to get Senate to sign off on it, and it mustn't to violate the Constitution etc. etc. etc...
They have not ruled on the merits of that law change, only that he has to follow the law making processes. Or in fact the way they've done it, means the whole Executive branch is required to follow the law making processes.
moratorium? Yet they call it a ban.
Wrong, unless you meant to write "absolute monarchy" instead.
Washington, Jefferson and the rest gave the courts a major role for a reason.
The question was never should they, but by how much.
As usual, regulations like these are mere Trojan Horses. By setting limits to unreasonably low levels, production could be made too expensive or even brought to a halt. That's the kind of lever it is. A Democrat Administration would undoubtedly be able to use this in the same way Obama used regulations on coal to essentially kill the industry, as he promised.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
And oil and gas companies should be required to minimize methane leaks
Reducing leaks is an "easy win". It is cost effective, and can make a substantial difference. Delaying the implementation is stupid. But deciding if a regulation or law is stupid is NOT WHAT COURTS ARE FOR. The job of the judiciary is to rule on the legality. When courts start ruling on the merits, and doing the legislature's job, then the courts become politicized and lose their legitimacy.
We really need more civics education in this country.
Federal environmental laws specifically state how the EPA is supposed to regulate. They can't just put in or take out whichever rules they want.
When you were a child, did your mother never teach you to clean up after yourself?
Well, companies have to do the same thing. And like you as a child, if they won't do it on their own then parents (government) is forced to intervene and require (regulate) them to do so.
Burning coal dumps megatons of sulfates and and ash and other pollutants into the atmosphere annually. Pollutants that are directly related to acidification of rainfall and as such our streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater; that directly contribute to asthma and lung cancer and other health related issues; and, of course, to our carbon footprint.
So yes, power plants were required to install scrubbers and generally clean up their act. And yes, that contributes to the cost of doing business. But that is, like it or not, part of those costs, and we don't allow coal plants to indiscriminately pollute any more than we allow chemical companies to freely dump waste into the river upstream from your home.
So yes, when you factor in those costs, it makes coal more expensive. But other means of energy production (like drilling for gas) have their own regulations and corresponding expenses and coal would still be more expensive if all of those regulations were gone. Thus the market has decided to pursue gas-fired plants, in addition to renewables liked solar and wind.
Coal is dirty, dangerous, a nightmare to safely produce, and expensive as heck to ship (daily) from where it's produced to where it's consumed. (After which you have to deal with the byproducts.)
Coal powered America for a long time. So did horses and steam engines. But like the later, we have better solutions now, and its time for it to go.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I'm not certain if you're a troll or not, but on the off chance you're serious:
First, it is possible to think that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama have performed or attempted to perform gross over-reaches of executive authority. I didn't vote for Trump, but my greatest hope for the next four years is that Congress realizes that it, not the President, creates policy.
Second, but probably more important, are you seriously going to mount "Well he did it too!" as a counter-argument? I try to refrain from ad hominem attacks, but are you really that stupid? The idea that "they broke the rules so we're justified in breaking the rules" is how rule of law dies. Every time. Read the history of the Roman civil wars and pay close attention to Maurius. If that's too far back in the mists of antiquity, take a survey of the African continent over the last 40 years. When we ignore the rule of law simply to further our own ends, that's how civil government dies.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
I don't see anywhere where the court ruled on whether the law was stupid or not, only that Pruitt lacked the legal authority to delay the rule from taking effect.