Posted on 07/08/2017 1:13:48 AM PDT by GonzoII
The Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal appeals court Friday to hold off from enforcing its decision to allow Obama-era methane rules for fracking to move forward as it weighs its options for appeal.
The agency asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for "relief from immediate compliance" with its Monday ruling, which said Trump's EPA lacked the legal authority to delay the methane rules on oil and natural gas drillers for two years while it mulled repealing the rule.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
The percentage of methane in the atmosphere is 0.00017% WHY would you need ANY kind of regulation on that? There is more hot air from Al Gores fat mouth in the atmosphere than there is methane.
>>The agency asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for “relief from immediate compliance” with its Monday ruling, which said Trump’s EPA lacked the legal authority to delay the methane rules <<
Wait — under obozo, the EPA was omnipotent! If someone sneezed they put a restraining order, a fine and a HEPA nose/mouth filter on you!
Chuck the EPA in a bag and throw the bag in the ocean!
Am I reading this right? The same agency that created the rules is now not allowed to stay the rules?
I was thinking the same thing. The courts are evil.
Under what authority were the new rules and regulations promulgated? Were these rules created by the bureaucracy that is the EPA? If so, why cannot the same agency rescind the rules?
If they were promulgated by direct Congressional actions, signed by the (P)resident at the time, then they should be undone in the same manner, it seems.
Alternatively, Trump should be able to issue an EO proscribing expenditures in support of enforcement, and then work on dissolving the whole of the damnable EPA.
Pretty much, yes. EPA can change the rule, but that change is supposed to go through the notification and comment process. Here, EPA did not instigate notice and comment on non-implementation, and the rule was implemented.
CADC Case 17-1145 : Opinion and Order
The dissent draws a sharp distinction between the denial of a stay, which would have required regulated entities to comply with the rule, and the imposition of the stay, which erased that obligation. As the dissent sees it, only forced compliance has "obvious consequences" for regulated parties. Dissent at 5. But this one-sided view of final agency action ignores that, by staying the rule's effective date and its compliance duties, EPA has determined "rights or obligations . . . from which legal consequences will flow." Bennett, 520 U.S. at 178. The dissent's view is akin to saying that incurring a debt has legal consequences, but forgiving one does not. A debtor would beg to differ.
Courts have no business issuing rulings based simply on a scientific consensus. Because it is a consensus and scientific facts may prove otherwise.
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