The Bureau of Land Management’s decision this week to postpone enforcement of much of its new rule to control methane emissions from oil and gas operations, as it works to revise or repeal the rule, comes as a disappointment to activists hoping for at least a temporary benefit from the measure.

The decision only makes sense, however. The Trump administration seems bound and determined to kill the regulation finalized last year by the Obama administration. It isn’t fair to ask companies to make equipment and personnel investments, such as for leak detection and repair requirements that had been scheduled to go into effect in January, when the odds are high that the requirements won’t withstand the agency’s review of them in the long term.

Nor, as the BLM notes, does it make sense for the agency to commit resources to implementing “potentially transitory requirements.” Read more at The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.