Oregon environmental regulators are heading back to the drawing board Tuesday in their push to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel companies after a court ruled late last year that the state’s first attempt was invalid. When the state’s Climate Protection Program was adopted in late 2021, it promised to be one of the strongest climate action programs in the nation. Combined with other reduction efforts, it aimed to help reduce nearly all of Oregon’s carbon emissions by 2050. However, oil and gas companies that fell under its regulations criticized the program and quickly filed a lawsuit after the program’s launch in early 2022. The companies were seeking to block the program entirely by arguing the Department of Environmental Quality overstepped its authority …DEQ decided not to appeal the court decision. Instead, the agency opted to restart the rulemaking process, delaying the implementation of the program by at least a year — to 2025.