SUPREME COURT BLOCKS LIMITS ON POWER PLANT POLLUTION

By Miriam Raftery

June 29, 2015 (Washington D.C.)—In a setback to advocates of public health, the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked an administrative order by the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency that would have limited toxic mercury emissions from oil- and coal-fired power plants.

In a 5-4 decision, the majority of justices sided with industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, finding that the costs of compliance must be taken into account in the regulatory process.

The EPA had estimated costs of compliance at $9.6 million a year.

The case, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, challenged regulations that arose out of 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, which ordered the EPA to expedite restrictions on emissions of mercury and 188 other air pollutants. Work on those amendments has spanned administrations of three presidents: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

The EPA has estimated that 7 percent of women of childbearing age in the U.S. have been exposed to dangerous levels of mercury, which can cause neurological abnormalities in children, CNN reports.

Justice Elena Kagan dissented, writing that agencies should have broad discretion to consider cost at a later stage, not merely an early stage as the majority held.  She concluded, “The result is a decision that deprives the American public of the pollution control measures that the responsible Agency, acting well within its delegated authority, found would save many, many lives."

Some power plants have already installed pollution control equipment to reduce emissions under the ruling, so it’s not known how many others continue to pump out mercury into the air. 

Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised the decision. “The Supreme Court’s decision today vindicates the House’s legislative actions to rein in bureaucratic overreach and institute some common sense in rule making,” he said, the New York Times reports.

The decision does not strike down the EPA rule, but instead requires the EPA to justify it including a comparison of costs versus benefits. EPA spokesperson Melissa Harrison said after the ruling that the EPA remains committed to protecting the public “from the significant amount of toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired electric utilities” and will continue efforts to reduce toxic pollution from those facilities.