Nearly three dozen energy companies filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to immediately stay an EPA rule that sets performance standards for new, modified, or existing sources of emissions in the oil and natural gas sector.

The companies and some two dozen states that have filed a similar petition want to pursue review of the final rule with the federal agency.

The 35 energy companies are seeking the emergency stay under the umbrella of Continental Resources of Oklahoma City and spearheaded by Denver environmental attorney Paul Seby.

Seby filed the petitions on Wednesday after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the petitioners’ motions to stay the rule on July 9.

“These applications to the Supreme Court are necessary because EPA is ignoring the Court’s decision two years ago in trying to take over state authority over natural resources and imposing unrealistic regulations on critical American energy infrastructure that cannot be complied with,” Seby said in a statement to The Denver Gazette.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the state is committed to defending the “methane rule.”

“The methane rule is critical for protecting air quality. It was developed in a thoughtful fashion, and we are committed to defending it,” Weiser said in a statement.

The petitions called the final rule, which went into effect immediately when the D.C. Circuit Court refused to stay its implementation, “arbitrary and capricious,” adding it constitutes an “authoritarian national command from EPA to the States and operators … that violates the cooperative federalism” that Congress embedded in the Clean Air Act.

Petitioners said the EPA far overstepped its regulatory authority and “usurped” the states’ authority to set performance standards.

The rule also created a “super emitter” program that authorized private persons to monitor, collect data, and file complaints about purportedly illegal emissions. The petitioners say EPA cannot legally farm out its enforcement authority to private persons and that doing so leaves producers open to sanctions from claims of emissions violations without due process.

Citing a 2022 decision by the Supreme Court overruling EPA’s authority to impose “national transformative changes” to the regulation of individual sources of air emissions in West Virginia et al v. EPA, the petitioners claimed the EPA is repeating that mistake to the substantial detriment of both state’s powers and the rights of the oil and gas industry.

The law allows affected companies to seek an internal EPA review of the rule after final action is taken, in addition to the court cases in progress.

The stay, if granted, will allow the internal EPA review to proceed without immediately forcing companies to change their systems.