Methane Leak Rules Ineligible for Congressional Challenge

Posted January 25, 2017, 12:39 P.M. ET

By David Schultz

Congress has missed its opportunity to kill the EPA’s new regulations on methane leaks from oil and gas wells, according to a Republican lawmaker.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) had attempted to nullify the regulations by introducing a resolution (H.J.Res. 22) earlier this month through the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress the opportunity to nullify an agency regulation within a fixed amount of time after the regulation is issued. 

However, a Republican staffer told Bloomberg BNA that the House’s parliamentary attorneys subsequently determined that the methane regulations aren’t eligible for a CRA challenge because too much time has passed since the Environmental Protection Agency finalized them in June.

Perry said that, despite this, he will try to oppose the regulations in other ways. “Although we’ve learned my legislation to block this rule doesn’t qualify under the Congressional Review Act,” he said in an e-mail to Bloomberg BNA, “it’s still a fight worth fighting.”

In a Jan. 24 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House Majority Leader, also said Republicans want to overturn the methane regulations, writing that they will be “one of the first to go.”

The regulations require the operators of new oil and gas wells to do more intensive monitoring for leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and to develop leak-monitoring plans.

A CRA challenge would have likely been the quickest way to roll back these new rules. Challenging them in court or undoing them administratively could take months if not years to accomplish.