Gizmodo

“Since 2017, the agency, through a variety of actions, has signaled it is going to take a more relaxed approach,” Joe Goffman, former associate administrator for Climate and Senior Counsel at the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation who now helps run Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law Program, told Earther. “This administration has sent enough signals to sources that they are operating under a more lenient regime that could corroborate the data that is the focus of this report.”

The proposal to rollback the rules argues that the EPA doesn’t have authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate methane emissions from new and modified oil and gas operations, Joe Goffman, former EPA staff and current executive director of Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, told Earther. That means if the rule change goes through, any future attempts to regulate the greenhouse gas will meet major hurdles in the courtroom.

The proposal to rollback the rules argues that the EPA doesn’t have authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate methane emissions from new and modified oil and gas operations, Joe Goffman, former EPA staff and current executive director of Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, told Earther. That means if the rule change goes through, any future attempts to regulate the greenhouse gas will meet major hurdles in the courtroom.

“Wehrum was an enthusiastic executioner of the Trump EPA’s anti-public health anti-environmental agenda,” said Joe Goffman, who worked on the Clean Power Plan when he worked at the EPA, in a statement emailed to Earther. “To the great harm of the public and the environment, that agenda will roll on regardless of who replaces him.”