Sierra Club: District Court Rejects “Baseless Attacks” of EPA Methane Standard

Washington, D.C. - In a major win for climate and public health, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied yesterday an effort by the oil and gas industry and its political supporters to suspend critical EPA protections against methane pollution while the court considers legal challenges to the rule. Sierra Club and its allies submitted multiple briefings opposing these legal attacks, which a three-judge panel rejected with no noted dissents. This means that EPA’s badly-needed standards will remain in effect while the litigation proceeds in court.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is approximately 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the near-term, and the oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of this pollution in the United States. EPA’s methane rule is based on low-cost, commonsense measures that will reduce nearly 60 million tons of methane over the next decade and a half. The rule will also reduce large amounts of smog- and soot-forming compounds and deadly air toxins like benzene and formaldehyde, providing major health benefits, especially to front-line communities and others that are particularly vulnerable to these harmful emissions.

In response, Sierra Club Senior Attorney Andres Restrepo said the following:

“We are gratified that the Court rejected these baseless attacks on EPA’s methane standards, which reflect years’ worth of solid evidence and have a rock-solid foundation in law. When they have no good arguments to halt critical environmental protections like this one, corporate polluters and their political allies will throw anything and everything at the wall to try and stop them. For good reason, those efforts failed here. We have full confidence that the Court will similarly deny our opponents’ arguments when it reviews EPA’s rule on the merits, and we look forward to defending it as the case proceeds.”

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