According to the Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency remained unsuccessful in briefing the industries about the changes it intended to introduce and also failed at familiarising them with the costs which might be involved in fighting against pollution. Washington has statewide fish consumption warnings in effect for high mercury content, and the EPA says power plants are the major source of mercury. But the ultimate outcome likely will not be a victory for the challengers.
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The Supreme Court is strongly suggesting that conversation take place. The savings stem from the prevention of up to 11,000 deaths, 4,700 nonfatal heart attacks and 540,000 lost days of work, the EPA said.
Talen Energy’s Colstrip power plant in Montana will still be upgraded to meet new EPA rule despite Supreme Court ruling.
The ruling affects about 580 power plants across the country. It regulates mercury, arsenic and acid gases emitted by coal-fired power plants. If the proposal is not accepted by the EPA, the plant may shut down sooner than 2025.
In the Pacific Northwest, plans to close two coal-fired power plants are already on track. The EPA’s power plant mercury standards will reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 75 percent. So the air quality in Arizona will not be impacted regardless of the fate of EPA’s rule.
“Gov. Branstad is pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the EPA’s burdensome regulations that would have increased government red tape and costs to American consumers”, the governor’s spokesman, Jimmy Centers, said in a statement.
“The agency acted well within its authority in declining to consider costs at the opening bell of the regulatory process, given that it would do so in every round thereafter-and given that the emissions limits finally issued would depend crucially on those accountings”.
While the courts have become increasingly aggressive in invalidating regulations issued by other federal agencies, the EPA’s air pollution regulations have mostly survived judicial scrutiny.
“EPA strayed well beyond the bounds of reasonable interpretation in concluding that cost is not a factor relevant to the appropriateness of regulating power plants”, wrote the majority of justices. ” “The Court rejected EPA’s contention that the Clean Air Act’s “appropriate and necessary” language does not require consideration of costs, reasoning that “[n]o regulation is “appropriate” if it does significantly more harm than good”.
“A better analogy might be to a auto owner who decides without first checking prices that it is “appropriate and necessary” to replace her worn-out brake-pads, aware from prior experience that she has ample time to comparison shop and bring that purchase within her budget”, Kagan wrote.
The ruling emerged from a multiyear effort by the Obama administration to crack down on power plant pollution.
Supporters of the Clean Power Plan say that the justices’ opinion in the mercury case did not undermine the legal footing of the Clean Power Plan.
“Some portion of that capacity will come back on now that they don’t have to comply with this foolish rule”, he said.
More challenges could await the mercury rule.
Massachusetts took the lead among states filing briefs to support the EPAs case in the Supreme Court.
However, the EPA gets really creative in naming the ledger’s benefits.
“It’s not clear to us where this is going to end up”, he said.
The majority on the court held, however, that the EPA should have considered costs at the outset before deciding to regulate.
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Elizabeth Shogren is HCN’s DC Correspondent. “And I can’t think of a bigger defeat”.
