A federal judge shouldn’t scrap an Obama-era methane rule just because the Trump administration won’t defend it in court, state and environmental lawyers argued in a court filing.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and other groups, joined by California and New Mexico, on Tuesday urged the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming to uphold the Bureau of Land Management’s regulation on its merits and allow “benefits of reduced waste, increased royalties, and decreased pollution finally to be realized.”
The groups and states argued that the Justice Department’s decision to abandon any legal defense of the rule ...