Lawyers representing the EPA filed a motion Friday seeking to delay enforcement of a rule that would clamp down on methane pollution at drilling sites.
The Hill reports that the agency is fighting the Obama-era rule that would apply to oil and natural gas drilling.
Friday's filing occurred after the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Monday that the EPA could not delay complying with the rule for 90 days, as it had requested last month. The agency argued that oil and gas industry groups were not able to weigh in on the rule, which requires companies to report and fix methane leaks in their equipment, before it was passed last year by former President Barack Obama.
"By taking the unusual step of directing that the mandate issue forthwith, the court required immediate compliance with its decision (and, therefore, compliance with the full scope of the 2016 rule, including those provisions that are being reconsidered), notwithstanding that EPA and regulated parties would ordinarily be provided with 52 days, or longer, before compliance was required," the EPA attorneys wrote in Friday's filing.
Monday's court ruling came after several conservation groups filed a lawsuit in June that disagreed with the EPA's decision to temporarily hold off on implementing the rule.
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