Greens sue EPA over paused Obama methane pollution regulation

A coalition of environmental groups on Monday sued the Trump administration, saying that it violated the law last week in pausing an Obama administration methane pollution rule for the oil and natural gas industry. The lawsuit to save the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) methane rule is the first court action against a Trump administration policy related to climate change. Groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Sierra Club said the EPA illegally skipped the required process when it put a 90-day halt on the standards to limit methane pollution, a greenhouse gas around 80 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. The greens are asking the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to step in immediately and block the EPA from halting the rule “In its haste to do favors for its polluter cronies, the Trump EPA has broken the law,” Meleah Geertsma, a senior NRDC attorney, said in a statement...more