The newly elected Morrison Government has fired its first shots in the climate wars, warning WA’s environmental watchdog against going it alone to impose industry-destroying carbon rules.

The intervention comes as oil and gas giant Woodside cautions WA’s Environmental Protection Authority not to “compound the error” it made when it issued shock rules this year demanding that new resource mega-projects be carbon neutral.

In one of his first public statements as Federal Energy Minister in the new Government, Angus Taylor said WA must not act outside the Federal system in seeking to reduce industry carbon emissions. “Any additional State-based targets are unnecessary to meet our commitments,” Mr Taylor said.

EPA boss Tom Hatton was forced to speak out yesterday to counter claims the body was once again poised to reissue sweeping carbon restrictions on new resource projects.

Dr Hatton said the agency had only just begun negotiations with industry on how months of future consultations would run, promising an “open and fair dinkum” process.

Addressing an oil and gas forum in Brisbane today, Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman will argue that the EPA must allow “serious and open-minded reflection” on its approach to the issue.

“To fail to do so would raise further questions about the validity of the EPA’s advice,” Mr Coleman will say.

Premier Mark McGowan will be among those in the audience.

Dr Hatton stressed his agency was nowhere near close to making a decision, with the process likely to last until the end of the year.

The EPA chief said the factors that led the agency to put out its controversial guidance this year that so infuriated industry had not changed, but that did not mean they would simply reissue the same advice.

“The science hasn’t changed, the emissions trends haven’t changed,” Dr Hatton said.

“And as near as we can tell the regulatory environment has not changed. So that’s the same operating space then as it is now.”

He said the act spoke of the “practicability” of companies meeting targets, so they could successfully argue technical or legal restraints would prevent them from meeting recommended emissions restrictions.

State Environment Minister Stephen Dawson suggested the EPA should not be considering so-called “Scope 3” emissions as part of any new guidelines — rules that would punish WA companies for emissions generated overseas from local resources.