CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey led a 24-state coalition in writing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday regarding a job-killing oil and natural gas rule proposed by the agency.
The letter, sent to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, expressed concerns raised by the attorneys general about the rule, which would establish new standards of performance under the Clean Air Act for new and modified sources of methane in the oil and natural gas sector.
These states argue that EPA’s proposed rule incorrectly reinstates legal deficiencies of the 2016 Clean Air Act rule, reflects an unbalanced view of EPA’s prior regulations and improperly preserves duplicative and costly regulation.
“The proposed rule’s costs are especially damaging given that EPA intends to impose them in the midst of a tightening energy market,” Attorney General Morrisey led the coalition in writing. “Consumers are already facing some of their highest heating bills in years because of spiking energy prices and brutal temperatures. With recent international tensions in key energy-producing areas, market conditions might only worsen in the near- and medium-term. And across the board, American consumers and businesses are paying more money for essential goods and services. EPA should be especially reluctant to impose high costs in conditions like these—at least without even more compelling benefits on the other side of the scale. Yet the proposed rule does not appear to acknowledge these relevant conditions at all.”
Instead, the coalition says the EPA should once and for all fix the foundational error that the Obama administration used to claim such regulation was authorized in the first place. Doing so would enact a stricter approach that would require more rigorous study and keep with the intent of the Clean Air Act.
The Attorney General was active in leading coalitions that challenged the initial rule in August 2016 and then defended the Trump Administration’s authority to reconsider and administratively stay its implementation.
The August 2016 challenge argued the Obama-era rule was in excess of the agency’s statutory authority. Additionally, it would have raised production and distribution costs and, in turn, forced an increase in consumer utility bills.
Experts estimate that in West Virginia alone, implementation of the proposed rule under EPA’s preferred two-year timetable could cost that state’s environmental regulatory agency more than $278 million each year.
On the same day as he sent the coalition’s letter to the EPA, Attorney General Morrisey signed onto a Louisiana-sponsored letter that primarily addresses how EPA is quantifying the “social cost of carbon” used to calculate the costs and benefits of the rule.
West Virginia is a leader in natural gas production. The natural gas, pipeline and construction sectors provide thousands of jobs to hard-working West Virginians. Reintroducing unnecessary and costly regulations would jeopardize those jobs.
Joining the West Virginia-led letter were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.
Read a copy of the letter at https://bit.ly/3rrBqw9.
