California and New Mexico are suing the Trump administration to block it from rolling back Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing waste from natural gas exploration on public lands.
The suit comes just hours after the Bureau of Land Management repealed key sections of the 2016 Waste Prevention Rule, which assesses royalties on operators that allow natural gas and its waste to escape into the atmosphere.
The regulation would have eliminated the equivalent of 3 million passenger vehicles worth of emissions in one year, according to a statement issued by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
“With this ...