Supreme Court Blocks Obama's Limits on Power Plants
NY Times
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday blocked one of the Obama
administration's most ambitious environmental initiatives, one meant to
limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power
plants.
Industry groups and some 20 states challenged the
Environmental Protection Agency's decision to regulate the
emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into
account the punishing costs its regulations would impose.
The Clean Air Act required the regulations to be
"appropriate and necessary." The challengers said the
agency had run afoul of that law by deciding to regulate
the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit
analysis.
The agency responded that it was not required to take
costs into account when it made the initial determination
to regulate. But the agency added that it did so later in
setting emissions standards and that, in any event, the
benefits far outweighed the costs.
The two sides had very different understandings of the
costs and benefits involved. Industry groups said the
government had imposed annual costs of $9.6 billion to
achieve about $6 million in benefits. The agency said the
costs yielded tens of billions of dollars in benefits.
The decision, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency,
No. 14-46 was a setback for environmentalists.
In the term that ended in June 2014, the justices heard
cases on two other sets of environmental regulations — one
aimed at limiting power plant pollution that wafts across
state lines, the other at cutting planet-warming
greenhouse gas emissions. The E.P.A. won the first case
and largely prevailed in the second, though the Supreme
Court indicated that it remained prepared to impose limits
on the agency's regulatory authority.
Monday's decision reversed one from the United States
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,
which ruled that the agency's interpretation of the Clean
Air Act was reasonable.
"For E.P.A. to focus its 'appropriate and necessary'
determination on factors relating to public health
hazards, and not industry's objections that emission
controls are costly, properly puts the horse before the
cart," Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote for the majority.
In dissent, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh said that, in
context, the statute required attention to costs "as a
matter of common sense, common parlance and common
practice."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/us/supreme-court-blocks-obamas-limits-on-power-plants.html?smid=tw-bna&bna=5000&_r=0
