West Virginia is threatening to sue the Obama administration over Thursday’s greenhouse gas rules for fracking.
The Environmental Protection Agency has an established track record of pumping out illegal regulations, said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is digging into the new methane regulations to find anything that constitutes federal overreach.
“My office is scrutinizing each aspect of today’s final rules to ensure the Environmental Protection Agency has complied with the law,” Morrisey said. “The Obama administration has a history of exceeding its authority and bypassing Congress to achieve its goal.”
“Rest assured my office will review this regulation line by line and we stand ready to take appropriate action,” he said.
Morrisey is leading 30 states in challenging the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change agenda, the Clean Power Plan. He successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to halt the climate plan while the states and dozens of other groups fight to kill it in federal appeals court. Oral arguments are slated for June 2.
Thursday’s rules are the latest in President Obama’s broad agenda to fight global warming by targeting methane, a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas, emitted by new shale oil and gas wells. The EPA also initiated a process for regulating existing oil and gas wells, but those won’t be complete until a new administration takes office.
Many scientists blame greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels for warming the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in sea-level rise and catastrophic drought.
West Virginia, although known for coal production, is also a natural gas producer. The state sits on one of the largest shale formations in the country, called the Marcellus, that extends from the eastern part of the state to New York, via Pennsylvania.
