The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit today against the Environmental Protection Agency for delays in deciding whether to approve or reject Pennsylvania’s outdated plan to clean up smog from the methane gas industry. The methane gas is mainly extracted using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Pennsylvania’s plan to control the smog caused by fracking is based on technology and guidance from 1983. In recent decades vastly improved methods have been developed for capturing and limiting the emissions that lead to dangerous smog pollution. But the EPA has failed to consistently require that smog-reduction plans incorporate those technologies, so fossil fuel industries have failed to use them.