Environmental groups sue to force BLM to implement methane rule

Dec. 20, 2017
Seventeen environmental organizations have sued in US District Court for Northern California to compel the US Bureau of Land Management to implement its oil and gas 2016 methane venting and flaring rule. Their Dec. 19 action challenges BLM’s decision earlier in December to delay most of the regulation’s compliance deadlines until Jan. 29, 2019, while the agency reviews it further.

Seventeen environmental organizations have sued in US District Court for Northern California to compel the US Bureau of Land Management to implement its oil and gas 2016 methane venting and flaring rule. Their Dec. 19 action challenges BLM’s decision earlier in December to delay most of the regulation’s compliance deadlines until Jan. 29, 2019, while the agency reviews it further (OGJ Online, Dec. 8, 2017).

“Interior’s BLM methane waste rule delay flies in the face of overwhelming public support, Congress’s recent rejection of an attempt to repeal the rule, a federal court’s determination that an injunction halting implementation of the rule was not warranted, and—fundamentally—core precepts of federal law,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, Ore.

Groups participating in the lawsuit included the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Defense Fund, San Juan Citizens Alliance, and Wyoming Outdoor Council.

Officially known as the Methane Waste and Prevention Rule, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy Alliance, along with the states of Wyoming, North Dakota, and Montana, legally challenged it in federal court soon after the rule became final on Nov. 18, 2016. The case now is pending in US District Court for Wyoming.

BLM reviewed the 2016 final rule as part of Sec. of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s Secretarial Order No. 3349, American Energy Independence, issued on Mar. 29. The agency found that immediately implementing some parts of the 2016 final rule could unnecessarily burden industry as BLM considers which parts of that rule might change.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].