BISMARCK, ND (AP) – A federal judge in North Dakota has temporarily blocked a new Biden administration rule aimed at reducing natural gas fracking and flaring at oil wells.
“At this preliminary stage, the plaintiffs have shown they are likely to succeed on their claim, the 2024 rule is arbitrary and capricious,” U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor ruled Friday, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
North Dakota, along with Montana, Texas, Wyoming and Utah, challenged the rule in federal court earlier this year, arguing that it would discourage oil and gas production and that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management was overstepping its non-federal authority. minerals and air pollution.
The agency says the rule is intended to reduce gas waste and that royalty owners would receive more than $50 million in additional payments if implemented.
But Traynor wrote that the rules “add nothing more than federal regulation on top of existing federal regulation.”
When pumping oil, natural gas often emerges as a byproduct. Gas is not as profitable as oil, so it is vented or flared unless proper equipment is available for recovery.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a climate “super pollutant” that is many times stronger than carbon dioxide in the short term.
Well operators have reduced flaring rates in North Dakota significantly in recent years, but they are still about 5%, the Tribune reported. Reductions require infrastructure to capture, transport and use this gas.
North Dakota politicians praised the decision.
“The Biden-Harris administration continues to seek to over-regulate and ultimately undermine North Dakota’s energy generation capacity,” state Attorney General Drew Wrigley said in a statement.
The state government declined to comment.
