When it comes to the health risks of mercury produced by U.S. coal power plants,
the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that federal authorities failed to properly weigh the benefits of regulation against the costs.
Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote in the majority opinion, said that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acted unreasonably when it deemed cost “irrelevant” to the question of whether or not to regulate hazardous power plant pollution.
“That verdict is a setback to the administration at a time when all hands on deck are needed to defend the president’s climate agenda,” says the National Journal. “It creates uncertainty over the fate of a key pillar of the president’s efforts to curb air pollution and hands a fresh set of talking points to opponents of the rule as they argue that the administration overreached.” (Hooray!)
“By EPA’s logic, someone could decide whether it is “appropriate” to buy a Ferrari without thinking about cost, because he plans to think about cost later when deciding whether to upgrade the sound system,” Scalia wrote.
Although the decision blocks enforcement of rules that went into effect just this year, the EPA crowed that since the rule was issued three years ago, “investments have been made and most plants are already well on their way to making emissions reductions.”
Let’s hope that the Supreme Court will eventually boot out the EPA’s pending regulations to limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. Those new regulations are due out in the coming weeks.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/obama-scalia-climate-change-mats-20150629
Thanks to Laurel for these links
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