The US Supreme Court denied a request on Friday to place a hold on a lower court’s decision upholding two EPA rules while the decisions are under appeal. The denial means that the EPA rules must be followed until the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decides the cases.

The first EPA rule at issue, 89 FR 16820, mandates the reduction of methane emissions from the oil and natural gas collection and production. The other rule at issue, 89 FR 38508, mandates the reduction of certain hazardous air pollutant emissions from coal and oil powered electricity generators.

Typically, a request to stay a ruling is made because following a court ruling that is being appealed would impose such a massive economic burden on the applicants that it would cause irreparable damage to the applicants and harm the public. In this case, “the challengers complained that the new rule will impose billions of dollars in costs on power plants without providing any real public health benefits.” They went on to argue that the EPA does not have the authority to pursue a national policy that forces heavy industry away from fossil fuels because of climate change.

The challenges to the EPA rules were led by 24 Republican-led states, industry groups, power plants and mining companies.

As the petitioners await pending litigation in the appeals court for review of the rules, questions of whether the rules are legal will be decided without any deference to the EPA’s interpretation of the limits of its statutory authority after the Supreme Court’s recent overruling of the forty-year Chevron precedent. This ruling determined that courts must independently decide the statutory authority of government agencies.

The Supreme Court issued the orders without opinion.