(Just The News)—Twenty-three states, led by Texas, have sued the Environmental Protection Agency over a new rule it finalized in accordance with a law passed by Congress. The rule creates a methane tax and targets the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.
Texas produces the greatest volume of petroleum and marketed natural gas and would likely be disproportionately impacted by the tax.
In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law. The law created the Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP) to tax the oil and natural gas industry based on the amount of methane emissions released by the industry. In response, the EPA promulgated a rule to implement MERP, which is set to go into effect on Jan. 17.
On Thursday, a multi-state coalition sued the EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia petitioning the court to declare the rule unlawful and vacate it. The coalition argues the rule exceeds the EPA’s statutory authority, is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with the law.
The EPA’s final rule, “Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions,” was published last November in the Federal Register.
It affects “certain owners or operators of facilities in certain segments of the petroleum and natural gas systems industry that report more than 25,000 metric tons (mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).” It lists impacted industry segments as “offshore petroleum and natural gas production, onshore petroleum and natural gas production, onshore natural gas processing, onshore gas transmission compression, underground natural gas storage, liquefied natural gas storage, liquefied natural gas import and export equipment, onshore petroleum and natural gas gathering and boosting, and onshore natural gas transmission pipeline.”
The IRA passed the U.S. Senate solely along party lines, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.
The rule was promulgated after the EPA published a report noting that emissions in the industry were down by 44% nationwide in the top oil and natural gas producing basins, led by Texas, The Center Square reported.
According to the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, methane emissions dropped in seven oil- and natural gas-producing basins by up to 87% from 2019-2023.
The drop occurred as U.S. domestic producers, led by Texas, broke records over the past few years, producing “more crude oil than any country, ever,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, The Center Square reported.
A new S&P Global Commodity Insights analysis shows that methane emissions from oil and natural gas production operations in the Permian Basin alone decreased 26% in one year, equal to the total amount of carbon emissions avoided by every electric vehicle on the road in the U.S. last year, the Texas Oil & Gas Association points out.
Joining Texas in the lawsuit are the attorney generals representing North Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.
With a Republican majority, Congress could repeal the IRA; many EPA rules and regulations are expected to be rescinded by the Trump administration.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
