The USHCC Reaffirms Opposition to the Methane Rule

The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) today reaffirmed its position urging the Senate to use authority granted under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to repeal the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Methane and Waste Prevention Rule.

As stated in our letters to the Senate, under the Clean Air Act, the authority to regulate clean air is already given to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and to the states. Using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) would stop implementation of the BLM’s overreach and duplicative regulation, providing important relief to small business enterprises from this costly government regulation.

The most ambitious estimates by the BLM anticipate that the venting and flaring rule would only reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by a mere 0.0092 percent. With an estimated annual national cost of compliance between $110 and $279 million, countless operators throughout the country will be forced to shut down production. This would result in revenues to state and local coffers to plummet, not to mention the loss of thousands of jobs.

This afternoon we learned that the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) yesterday took a position opposing the use of CRA to repeal the Methane Rule. We regret not being informed about this position prior to the release of their letter to the U.S. Senate. We wish to reinforce that while we share many of the same values as NHLA, we disagree with their position on the Methane Rule.