A federal appeals court tossed out litigation on Thursday over whether the federal government can regulate fracking under a contentious Obama administration fracking rule.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case based on the Trump administration’s move to repeal the Bureau of Land Management regulation.
The court also vacated a lower court’s decision that the federal government overstepped its authority by attempting to regulate fracking on public lands.
“Our proceeding to address whether the district court erred in invalidating the … fracking regulation when the [Bureau of Land Management] has now commenced rescinding that same regulation appears to be a very wasteful use of limited judicial resources,” the court decision read.
The Trump Interior Department began the process of repealing the regulation in July.
The lower Wyoming district court had ruled last year that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management had no authority to regulate fracking based on a congressional restriction on any such rule.
The Obama administration appealed the Wyoming court’s decision to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled Thursday that it would not take up the merits of those arguments based on the new administration’s path toward repeal.
The BLM rule sought to update oil and natural gas rules to account for fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, the drilling method that turned the U.S. into a global energy giant. Not surprisingly, drilling companies in the West where BLM holds the most sway over land use had opposed the update, while environmentalists hailed it as a means of restricting oil and natural gas drilling.
