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BISMARCK – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) issued the following statement today on a federal judge in Wyoming vacating the Obama Administration’s methane venting and flaring rule:
“The Obama Administration’s methane rule infringed on state authority and was a direct attack on American energy jobs. When Senate Democrats in 2017 inexplicably voted to keep the rule, the Trump Administration was left with the lengthy process of repealing and replacing it. I am glad the rule has been vacated, and I applaud Interior Secretary Bernhardt and our Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem for fighting on behalf of North Dakota’s interests. Hopefully this ruling makes it clear to the groups leading these lawsuits that this is not a fight they are going to win.”
These regulations from the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management finalized under President Obama overstepped air regulation legal boundaries, which are the state’s and Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act. The methane rule also wrongly gave the federal government oversight over split estate lands, private or state surface lands with minerals beneath that the federal government claims. The Wyoming District Court opinion strikes down both these provisions as federal overreach, preserving state regulatory authority.
Earlier this summer, Senator Cramer denounced a federal judge in California for reinstating the methane rule and vowed to work with Attorney General Stenehjem to undo it and return property authority to the states.