Supreme Court Slams EPA

Supreme Court ruled against the EPA on power plant mercury regulations for failing to consider the costs. See below

 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus MICHIGAN ET AL. v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT*

No. 14–46. Argued March 25, 2015—Decided June 29, 2015

The Clean Air Act directs the Environmental Protection Agency to reg­ulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants from certain stationary sources (such as refineries and factories). 42 U. S. C. §7412. The Agency may regulate power plants under this program only if it con­cludes that “regulation is appropriate and necessary” after studying hazards to public health posed by power-plant emissions. §7412(n)(1)(A). Here, EPA found power-plant regulation “appropri­ate” because the plants’ emissions pose risks to public health and the environment and because controls capable of reducing these emis­sions were available. It found regulation “necessary” because the im­position of other Clean Air Act requirements did not eliminate those risks. The Agency refused to consider cost when making its decision. It estimated, however, that the cost of its regulations to power plants would be $9.6 billion a year, but the quantifiable benefits from the resulting reduction in hazardous-air-pollutant emissions would be $4 to $6 million a year. Petitioners (including 23 States) sought review of EPA’s rule in the D. C. Circuit, which upheld the Agency’s refusal to consider costs in its decision to regulate.

Held: EPA interpreted §7412(n)(1)(A) unreasonably when it deemed cost irrelevant to the decision to regulate power plants. Pp. 5–15.

(a) Agency action is unlawful if it does not rest “ ‘on a consideration

—————— *Together with No. 14–47, Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environ­mental Protection Agency et al., and No. 14–49, National Mining Assn.

v. Environmental Protection Agency et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

What Should Clean Air Cost?

The Supreme Court’s surprising decision to hear a challenge by big coal. By Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.com, 3/24/15

In a way, Wednesday’s Supreme Court case about the EPA’s new mercury legislation is another paradigmatic “Obama’s War on [Insert Name]” challenge.  In this case, the president is being blamed for shameless overreach in an unjust “War on Coal”—even though the Clean Air Act, at issue in the challenge, dates back to the days when Obama was just mastering his two-wheeler, and the EPA’s reading of the act feels less warlike than workmanlike.

Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970 and after a good deal of lollygagging and foot-dragging, amended it in 1990 to more aggressively target more than 180 hazardous substances including arsenic, mercury, and various toxic gases. If these substances were shown to harm human health, according to the rule, the Environmental Protection Agency “shall regulate” the major sources of these pollutants where it is “appropriate and necessary.” After studying the issue a lot, the EPA twice put forth new regulations it believed to be “appropriate and necessary” for coal and oil-fired power plants to curb the spread of mercury and other hazardous chemicals, first in 2000 and then again in 2012. (The Bush administration tried unsuccessfully to undo all this in 2005 but failed in federal court.) The challengers in this case argue, in short, that the EPA didn’t properly take costs into account when the agency created its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which set emissions standards for about 600 electric power plants across the nation.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/03/supreme_court_epa_clean_air_challenge_mercury_standards_cost_too_much_coal.html

Comments

The Court told the EPA to justify the cost on this piece of overreach on clean air regulations. It needs to do the same with carbon capture and water regulations to end the UN influence in the US.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader