Court Should Deny Shadow Docket Requests to Block Methane Pollution Limits

(Washington, D.C. – September 20, 2024) A broad coalition of health, environmental and community groups is opposing an attempt to use the Supreme Court’s shadow docket to block protective limits on methane pollution.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is one of the main causes of climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency set protective limits on methane pollution from new and existing oil and gas sources under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act earlier this year. Opponents of those protections, including Oklahoma and allied states and oil and gas trade associations, have asked the Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay from its shadow docket – before any court could fully hear the case and weigh all the evidence. (The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has already rejected a request for an emergency stay.)

Today the health, environmental and community groups filed a response in the Supreme Court opposing an emergency stay, saying:

“EPA’s authority and obligation to act is clear: the Clean Air Act mandates the control of dangerous pollution, and recently Congress has twice — in no uncertain terms — specifically directed EPA to limit oil and gas sector methane pollution under Section 111. The Rule is founded upon a large and robust technical record compiled over years, and it reflects conventional technology-based performance and work practice standards that will reduce pollution directly from affected oil and gas sources. It builds on similar approaches that EPA, states, and companies have used for years … The applications should be denied.”

Methane has more than 80 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. The oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S., and is also responsible for large amounts of other pollutants including benzene, which causes cancer, and toluene, which causes dysfunctions of the central nervous system. This pollution can disproportionately burden historically marginalized people, such as Tribal communities, whose members are more likely to live near oil and gas facilities.

EPA’s standards will reduce millions of tons of climate-damaging methane and other toxic, smog-forming pollution from oil and gas leaks, venting and flaring – giving people cleaner, healthier air to breathe and helping protect them from the severe damages of climate change. EPA estimates that the methane protections will prevent hundreds of premature deaths and many more illnesses; in one year alone, they are expected to prevent 97,000 cases of asthma symptoms.

In July, a D.C. Circuit panel composed of Judges Katsas, Rao, and Childs unanimously denied the challengers' motions for a stay. More than six weeks after that ruling – but before the D.C. Circuit could begin hearing the case on its merits – opponents filed their request for an emergency stay with the Supreme Court. 

In their motion today, the health, environmental and community groups point out that:

“[A] stay would harm Respondents, their members, and the public at large by allowing the emissions of millions of additional tons of harmful pollution.”

The motion was filed by Environmental Defense Fund; Earthjustice representing GreenLatinos, Clean Air Council, Dakota Resource Council, and Fort Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights (Ft. Berthold POWER); Center for Biological Diversity; Clean Air Task Force representing Earthworks; Environmental Law and Policy Center; Food & Water Watch; NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council); and Sierra Club. The same groups will continue to defend the standards before the D.C. Circuit. 

EPA and a coalition of 19 states and the District of Columbia have also filed responses in the Supreme Court opposing an emergency stay.

For now, the methane standards remain in place.