Although local officials welcomed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 1,690-page final rule that, for the first time, will regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas industry nationwide, the latter’s representatives in Colorado called it punitive and unnecessary.

Some also complained that the rule will grant investigatory authority to non-governmental organizations, such as environmental groups, to monitor for methane emissions and demand that operators repair leaks, and take away power from the state.

Supporters say it’s a long-awaited move that establishes limits on methane pollution from both new and existing oil and gas sources.

Critics counter that it’s a regulatory overreach that applies unconstitutional and illegal provisions, which will damage oil and gas companies and usurp states’ pollution management authority.

Colorado is well ahead of the methane game, according to state officials.

Indeed, the Colorado General Assembly has in the past few years enacted stringent new laws regulating oil and gas operations that preceded the EPA rule.

“An initial review shows the federal rule

would support and mirror multiple actions the division has taken over the past decade,” Leah Schleifer, spokesperson for the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division, told The Denver Gazette. “Colorado has long been a leader in reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations, and the division is committed to advancing this vital work.”

On the other hand, Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said the new rule is unwarranted.

“The oil and natural gas industry has a four-decade record of success reducing methane emissions,” Sgamma said in a news release. “Despite that success and the role the industry plays in ensuring sustainable, reliable energy, EPA has finalized a punitive rule that exceeds its lawful authority.”

Since 2005, the oil industry has reduced methane emissions 13%, even as oil production has increased 53% and natural gas production spiked by 101%, said Sgamma. She pointed out that using natural gas in the power sector has reduced emissions by 58%, compared to the wind and solar sector’s contribution at 42%.

Supporters said the rule is crucial to address the climate crisis.

“With these new methane standards, the Biden administration is taking a crucial step forward to address the climate crisis,” Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “It’s long past time for the oil and gas industry to check its wells and equipment for leaks and then repair them.”

Meanwhile, Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said American now “has the most protective methane pollution limits on the books.”

The rule grants investigatory authorities to non-government actors to monitor for methane emissions, a provision that Denver environmental attorney Paul Seby described as illegally usurping the state’s regulatory authority.

Seby said it empowers private persons or groups to engage in a police-power function. That, he added, is an attempt to have private actors do what the EPA itself cannot do.

The attorney said the rule intrudes on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s statutory authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act. Seby said the EPA is illegally claiming an authority not granted by Clean Air Act.

“(The law) says states regulate existing sources when there’s a new emission standard required for a new pollutant,” Seby told The Denver Gazette. “It’s methane, which is not regulated. These are new standards. And so, for existing sources, the Clean Air Act says the state sets the requirements, not the EPA.”

“The law gives the state that authority,” said Seby. “It doesn’t give NGOs any role, and now this rule does. That’s illegal because it gives them something the Clean Air Act doesn’t even talk about,” he said.

The other issue the new rule raises is that it creates a Fourth Amendment unlawful search and seizure violation, he said.

The rule authorizes “certified third parties,” such as environmental groups or other non-governmental organizations, to independently monitor emissions and notify EPA of so-called “Super Emitters.”

Seby speculated that one mechanism the non-government entities will use for surveillance are satellites that detect methane emissions from space. Seby said the NGOs will contract with a satellite company and use the data to go after owners of emission sources.

“The EPA doesn’t have the authority to give satellite peering authority into people’s property,” Seby said. “There are other instances where governmental entities have given search authority to non-governmental entities. The courts have struck that down as violating the Fourth Amendment. Because the prohibition of the Fourth Amendment applies to the government, the government can’t get around it by giving away the search authority to a non-governmental entity.”

“That’s clearly illegal,” he added. Last week, U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet urged Regan, the EPA administrator, to incorporate methane emission data from advanced measurement technologies, saying they would provide a more “comprehensive picture.”

“Methods currently in development to incorporate top-down data at the regional and site level promise to provide more accurate total emission estimates,” the senators wrote. “Incorporating top-down data should not be limited to the detection and quantification of high-emitting point sources.”

Colorado senators argued that methane is more potent than carbon dioxide and that “human-caused methane emissions are responsible for at least 25% of the climate warming we are experiencing today.”

Hickenlooper and Bennet have been pushing for stronger methane regulations for the oil and gas industry. Earlier this year, they asked the EPA to use data from “innovative monitoring technologies like satellite imaging.” They also urged the Bureau of Land Management to follow Colorado and New Mexico’s “lead by eliminating routine venting and flaring from oil and gas operations on public and tribal lands.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia complained that the EPA is “determined to target our flourishing oil and gas sector, despite its substantial progress in reducing methane emissions, irrespective of how it might impact American energy security, reliability, and consumer cost.”

“This has put pressure on EPA to hastily finalize and implement these extensive new regulations, leading to proposals that lack thorough consideration and alignment,” said Manchin, a Democrat from the country’s fourth-largest producer of marketed natural gas. “This lack of alignment unjustly burdens industry while simultaneously hindering EPA’s ability to achieve its own stated emissions reduction objectives.”

Methane accounted for 12% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in 2021, according to the EPA. The agency noted that methane is also emitted from natural sources, adding that natural wetlands that not managed or changed by human activity are the largest source. Smaller sources include termites, oceans, sediments, volcanoes, and wildfires, the EPA said.