Court Blocks E.P.A. Effort to Suspend Obama-Era Methane Rule
By LISA FRIEDMANJULY 3, 2017
WASHINGTON — Dealing a legal blow to the Trump administration, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday
that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot suspend an Obama-era rule to restrict methane emissions from new oil and gas wells.
And the effort to reverse the Clean Power Plan regulation on power plant carbon emissions
— the rule at the heart of Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda — could take years.
The administration has also used the delay tactic to stop a Food and Drug Administration rule requiring restaurants to list the calories in the food they sell and a Labor Department regulation mandating
that financial advisers put consumers’ best interests ahead of their own.
A number of other Trump administration actions to undo regulations it inherited, including a rule on grizzly bear protection
and another on chemical spills, are likely to receive close scrutiny from the courts.