June 05, 2026

Don’t Pass on Gas: ELPC Lawsuit Targets Curtailing Methane

ELPC and Coalition Members Challenge EPA Rule Suspending Deadlines for Oil and Gas Producers to Implement Measures to Reduce Methane Emissions

By Wendy Bloom, Senior Attorney & Max Lopez, Associate Attorney

Any time gas is leaked or intentionally vented from oil and gas facilities, air pollutants are emitted into the air. The oil and gas industry emits an enormous amount of methane, combined with other health-harming pollution like smog forming volatile organic compounds (“VOCs”) and cancer-causing hazardous air pollutants (“HAPs”).

This accelerates climate change because methane is more than eighty times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere and is responsible for one-third of the warming that we are experiencing today. The combined VOCs and HAPs emitted with methane contribute to detrimental health impacts like cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases.

What is at stake in terms of methane reductions?

In March 2024, before President Biden left office, EPA issued standards that will significantly reduce methane emissions, VOCs, and HAPs by oil and gas producers. These standards include common sense, cost-effective emissions control technology that reflect the best system of emission reduction required under the Clean Air Act, as well as improved monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting. Among other improvements the standards implemented:

• Zero emissions process controllers which prevent natural gas venting into the atmosphere during facility operation,
• Enhanced combustion device performance testing,
• A requirement to replace leaking valves with low-emitting valves, and
• A “Super Emitter Program” that required operators to quickly investigate and respond to large methane release incidents.

EPA calculated that the changes would cut emissions of 58 million tons of methane, 16 million tons of VOCs, and 590,000 tons of HAPs over the next 15 years.

What is EPA now doing to delay progress?

After the change in administration, in March 2025, just one year after EPA finalized these crucial methane emissions reduction standards, the agency announced plans to initiate a wholesale reconsideration of the 2024 Rule. In July 2025, the administration adopted a measure it referred to as an “Interim Final Rule,” immediately suspending deadlines for oil and gas producers to comply, even though many of the deadlines had already passed so the industry’s obligations had already having taken effect.

EPA’s Interim Rule was issued with no input from the public as the administration decided to skip the typical and statutorily required notice and comment period. As part of its stated intent to pursue the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin confirmed that EPA suspended those deadlines to give the agency time to plan how it will replace the 2024 Rule with weaker regulations.

EPA’s Final Rule ignores the core purpose the Clean Air Act to protect human health and the environment.

In December 2025, EPA reaffirmed suspension of the deadlines in a Final Rule nearly identical to its Interim Final Rule. It showed no regard for and simply no analysis of the public health and welfare impacts. EPA’s Final Rule ignores the core purpose the Clean Air Act to protect human health and the environment. EPA’s Final Rule also conflicts with clear court precedent that the EPA is required to analyze emissions impacts for any amendment of a rule promulgated pursuant to Section 111 of the Clean Air Act.

What Is ELPC doing?

On June 3, 2026, ELPC and our coalition partners filed our opening brief in a lawsuit we filed in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to fight EPA’s Final Rule suspending deadlines for oil and gas producers to implement methane-emission reduction measures.

Read Brief Here

As we explain to the Court, EPA’s Final Rule violates the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedure Act because EPA has:

1. Failed to analyze how the compliance delay would impact emissions and therefore human health,
2. Has clearly violated the 3-month limit on stays pending reconsideration, and
3. Has made arbitrary and capricious determinations that control technology would be infeasible to implement by heavily relying on off-the-record communications with the oil and gas industry.

EPA’s response is due July 31. Intervenor and Amici briefs are due August 14.  And, ELPC and our coalition partners will file our reply on August 25.