Posted on 04/29/2014 8:07:41 AM PDT by GIdget2004
The Supreme Court on Tuesday revived an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that limited power-plant emissions blowing across state lines—a victory for the Obama administration.
The court's 6-2 ruling breathes new life into a 2011 EPA regulation known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires 28 states to reduce power-plant emissions that hurt the air-quality in states located downwind.
The regulation stands to affect about 1,000 power plants in the eastern half of the U.S that may have to adopt new pollution controls or reduce operations.
The court's decision in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said the agency reasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act in adopting the cross-state rule.
The regulation was the EPA's latest attempt to implement a Clean Air Act provision that requires states to be good neighbors when it comes to air pollution. The Obama administration rule was intended to replace a Bush administration regulation that suffered a legal defeat in a lower federal court. The Bush-era rule, however, had remained in effect while the agency came up with a new plan.
That same lower court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, invalidated the Obama effort in 2012.
The D.C. Circuit said the EPA's approach for setting pollution reductions forced some states to limit more than their fair share of emissions. It also said the EPA didn't give the states a fair crack at coming up with their own plans for reducing emissions.
The Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday reversed that decision.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The good news, is that the lower court didn’t treat Obama any better than it treated Bush.
Ruth ‘wack job’ Ginsburg...hope she doesn’t die or retire.
Was Ruth able to stay awake long enough to read the entire decision out loud?
Who were the 2
On the surface, I agree with this decision. On of the legitimate functions of the FedGov is to protect states from each other.
As much as I’d love to whack Justice Ginsberg, the real blame lies at the feet of our Congresspeople who actually DID pass a law which says this.
True enough....
How many more electric generating plants will Obama shut down?
He will have us living like Arabs before he is finished.
We will be heating dirty ditch water over camel dung fires, using homemade oil lamps for lighting and fertiliizing with human excrement.
The fascist autonomy of the EPA needs to end.
Agreed. Unfortunately, they have now classified CO2 as a pollutant...
I agree with you. I don't want to be downwind of another state's excessive pollution.
But it also sounds like Scalia and Thomas have a legitimate dissent about the EPA's procedural process being inadequate.
And if the freeper who posted that CO2 is now a polutant is right, that's not good.
Our enemies don’t need to spend their resources trying to develop and deliver an EMP when campaign contributions laundered to the correct political party can have a similar effect.
So power plant operators will need to capture ‘pollutants’ and deliver them to customers who buy power.
You didn't hear about this? Yes, it's true.
I also agree...I worked on an air quality transport study in Las Vegas that was trying to prove that emissions from the LA Basin were partially responsible for the production of ozone in Las Vegas. The EPA wanted to put Clark County, NV in non-attainment status and we were trying to provide the data to show that not all the ozone problems within the Clark County area could be attributed to local emissions. We characterized the area very well and showed that LA Basin had influence on the Clark County air quality. A report was written and data presented, but at the time I do not think that EPA wanted to address cross-border transport...too political.
For CO2...what a joke!
Any atmospheric gas that Naturally occurs should never be a pollutant... CO2 I am looking at you!
I can see making Nitrogen Oxide and Sulfur Gasses a pollutant, but CO2... COME ONE....
Damned EPA has gone crazy insane...
Also the pollutant’s half-life in the environment should also be examined as well...
If a pollutant gets broken down quickly into harmless componetns, then it is not as a pollutant than somethign that doesn’t now is it...?
There is no intelligent life on the third rock from the sun.
Eventually C.A.R.B. will be required for all 57 states and we’ll all be governed by some leftards in Sacramento.
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