There are lots of happy reports on the Supreme Court’s ruling throwing out EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan. Some go so far as to suggest that EPA is barred from regulating power plant CO2 emissions.It is not quite that simple and the result is rather amusing. EPA is still required to regulate CO2 under the terms of the Clean Air Act, but that Act provides no way to do that regulation. The Clean Power Plan attempted to expand an obscure minor clause in the Act to do the job but SCOTUS correctly … [Read more...]
Will SCOTUS Rein in the EPA?
Back in 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act (CAA), and for the next two decades or more actions taken under it significantly improved the quality of America’s air. In 1990 it passed significant amendments to it, and some of these also had salutary effects.But, combined with an increasing tendency to allow administrative agencies, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to impose regulations without a clear statutory basis, and a tendency of courts to defer to agencies’ “expert … [Read more...]
Supreme Court Vindicates Cornwall Alliance on Mercury Emissions
Monday, July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the law by imposing regulations on mercury emissions from power plants without first doing thorough benefit/cost estimates. Nearly four years ago the Cornwall Alliance published a study by environmental regulatory economics Dr. Timothy Terrell, The Cost of Good Intentions: The Ethics and Economics of the War on Conventional Energy, that made that very point. Dr. Terrell comments on the … [Read more...]
Supreme Court Gets One Right: Strikes Down EPA’s Mercury Regulation
On Tuesday, June 30, the US Supreme Court issued its decision on Michigan v. EPA, regarding the EPA’s regulation of mercury emissions from power plants. Burning coal and oil releases mercury into the atmosphere, which scientists have said can eventually be absorbed into fish and thereby wind up in humans who eat the fish. Excess mercury can cause neurological damage, though there is some doubt about how much of that can be attributed to U.S. power plants. In Michigan v. EPA, the EPA claimed … [Read more...]
