Posted on 03/03/2016 8:05:41 AM PST by xzins
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a plea Thursday to block a contentious air pollution rule for power plants, in a big victory for the Obama administration.
Roberts’s order came despite his court’s 5-4 decision last year ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation, known as mercury and air toxics standards, is illegal.
Michigan led a group of 20 states last month, empowered by the Supreme Court’s recent unprecedented decision to halt the EPA’s climate change rule for power plants, in asking the court to live up to its ruling last year and block the regulation’s enforcement. “Unless this court stays or enjoins further operation of the Mercury and Air Toxics rule, this court’s recent decision in Michigan v. EPA will be thwarted,” the states wrote in a Feb. 23 filing with the court.
“A stay or injunction is appropriate because this court has already held that the finding on which the rule rests in unlawful and beyond EPA’s statutory authority.”
The EPA responded that no judicial stay is necessary, since it’s working to fix the problem the court identified by next month, and the states would not suffer irreparable harm in that time.
“The requested stay would harm the public interest by undermining reliance interests and the public health and environmental benefits associated with the rule,” the government said. “The application lacks merit and should be denied.”
Roberts acted swiftly, waiting less than a day after the EPA’s response brief to side with the Obama administration. He acted unilaterally, electing to reject the request himself rather than take it to the full court, which may have led to a 4-4 split following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.
The court ruled last June that the EPA should have conducted a cost-benefit analysis on the regulation before it even decided to start writing it. The agency did so as part of the regulatory process, but the justices said that was not sufficient.
But the Supreme Court did not overturn the rule at the time, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in December that the EPA could keep enforcing it.
Environmental groups were very pleased with Roberts’s decision.
Bush submitted Roberts because he didn’t have a long record to judge him by.
He gave us a real puzzle.
Why would Roberts undercut his own court’s ruling on this issue?
I’m sure we’ll see similar conservative defeats as SCOTUS ramrods 0bama’s most pressing interests through in lieu of Scalia’s death.
Let them eat cake.
Roberts is a huge disappointment.
Let’s not forget who pushed for and endorsed Roberts’ nomination...
“The Senate should confirm him swiftly.”
–Ted Cruz is the solicitor general of Texas.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214989/right-stuff-ted-cruz
And Republicans tell me we can not trust the kind of Justices Trump might appoint to the bench.....
Either Obama has some very damaging info on Roberts or Roberts has always been a closet democrat socialist liberal....
A new call for a new century should be heard throughout the land. NO REGULATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
Someone show me in the Constitution, the Federal governments power to regulate emissions or reclassify a gas as a pollutant. Buehler? Buehler? Buehler?
Roberts is a Traitor.
No, Bush was a huge disappointment.
He tapped someone he knew full well would not institute a Conservative agenda and one that we voters would not oppose.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
With the closing of a lot of power plants in WV I can’t wait for DC to go dark. Then people can ask what happened to all our electricity?
Another victory for the Uni-Party.
Benedict Roberts has become a traitor. He’s compromised, and the 0bamorrhoids control him.
And another Bush has given us another Souter...
So even when you win, you lose.
Justice Roberts - bought and paid for by Soros, Inc and blackmailed into silence over his homo past and adopted children. Nope, Obama will get whatever he wants from him, no problem.
Nominated by GWB!
He did not push for it. He called for confirmation just like everyone else. No one saw it coming.
Preemptive surrender.
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