Like the self-serving kid who cozies up to the schoolyard bully, Colorado’s attorney general is siding with the federal government as it treads on yet another state power in regulating air quality.

As The Gazette reported last week, Colorado AG Phil Weiser has signed onto a motion in federal court to intervene in defense of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s newly decreed Oil and Gas Methane Rule. The motion counters a March 8 lawsuit against the EPA filed by 26 states and led by the attorneys general of Texas and Oklahoma. Their suit in part challenges the stringent new rules.

Weiser has cover for nosing in; 19 other states and the District of Columbia also are intervening in support of the feds on the issue. Yet, the other states and the nation’s capital, by and large, aren’t energy producers; Colorado is.

One thing those states and D.C. do have in common with Colorado is they’re led by Democrats. So, they’re on the same side of the partisan divide as Weiser.

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As the nation’s No. 5 producer of oil and No. 8 supplier of natural gas, Colorado ironically has more in common in some ways with energy-producing states like Texas and Oklahoma that are on the other side of the face-off.

The new rule from the EPA regulates methane emissions by the oil and gas sector, whether generated by new sources or existing ones. Regulating existing sources – which unilaterally expands the agency’s statutory mandate without Congress’ approval – is something the EPA hasn’t done before. The lawsuit thus challenges the EPA’s authority to impose the new rules.

Questions of legal authority aside, the new EPA rules themselves are strict and, arguably, an overreach that serves to further turn the screws on oil and gas exploration and production in the name of fighting climate change. By ganging up with the EPA and the other intervenors against oil and gas, Weiser certainly isn’t trying to do any favors for an industry that has brought his own state so much prosperity for generations.

More consequentially for the entire country, though, he’s not doing any favors for consumers nationwide. Natural gas heats most of their homes and remains the single-biggest energy source for electricity generation. That’s not to mention gasoline refined from oil still fuels almost all of the cars and trucks on U.S. roads.

And here’s the thing: Colorado already has super-tough methane regulations of its own.

“I’m not sure really why Colorado needs to weigh in on this particular EPA rule, since Colorado already had strict methane rules without it,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance.

So, what’s Weiser’s angle if Colorado isn’t the problem?

For his part, the AG argued in a press statement last week the new rule, “must remain in place at the federal level for effective oversight of methane emissions from surrounding states.”

Sgamma, however, wonders if, “the state senses vulnerability to all the overregulation of the Biden administration or just wants a hand in ensuring that other states equally hamstring their oil and natural gas industries.” Misery loves company, in other words.

Or, maybe it’s just a case of a hyperactive AG looking for a little more limelight, perhaps as he nurses aspirations to higher office.

Regardless of his or any of the other intervenors’ motives, the EPA’s action stands to cripple oil and gas production and imperil the nation’s strategic energy needs. If nothing else, Weiser would have been wiser simply to stay out of the fight.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board