The US Senate [official site] on Tuesday rejected [vote summary] a measure that would rollback methane gas regulations. HJ Res 36 [text] was a joint measure which sought to provide Congressional disapproval of the final rule of the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation” [materials]. The rule controlled for the amount of methane that could be released during offshore drilling and when royalties were subjected during the process. The measure sought to overturn the ruling in order to support an increase in drilling. The House had passed the measure in February with 221-191 vote but in a 51-49 vote, the Senate rejected the measure to keep the protections in place.

Climate concerns continue to be an issue in local politics. Earthjustice, an environmental law advocacy group, filed a motion [JURIST report] in April on behalf of two other environmental groups asking a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban chlorpyrifos – a pesticide widely used for various fruits, vegetables, and wheat grown in the US. In March US President Donald Trump signed [Jurist report] an executive order reforming the previous administration’s energy policies. In February the newly confirmed head of the EPA Scott Pruitt [ announced [JURIST report] that they would be rolling back some Obama era regulations.