From the SPPI blog: DC Circuit Tosses Out EPA’s Pollution Rule
Source: Madison Project
Amidst Obama’s inexorable war on American energy, consumers, jobs, and prosperity, his EPA is in the process of promulgating 4 new pollution rules that will bury the coal industry and “necessarily” raise the price of electricity on American households. They are the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for Utilities (MACT), the Cooling Water Intake Structures regulation, and the Disposal of Coal Combustion residuals. The former two have already been finalized while the latter two are close behind. Today, the D.C. Circuit Court struck down the EPA’s authority to implement the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
In August 2011, Obama’s EPA imposed a cap and trade style program to expand existing limitations on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired power plants in 28 “upwind” states. They claimed that they had unlimited authority pursuant to the Clean Air Act to cap emissions that supposedly travel across state lines. The EPA admitted that the rule would cost $2.7 billion from the private sector and force many cole-fired power plants to shut down. Priorities USA might have even run an ad against Obama claiming that his superfluous regulations cause workers to lose their health insurance and die.
Luckily, several southern states decided to sue the EPA in federal court. In EME HOMER CITY GENERATION, L.P. v. EPA, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the EPA had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act in two respects:
First, the statutory text grants EPA authority to require upwind States to reduce only their own significant contributions to a downwind State’s nonattainment. But under the Transport Rule, upwind States may be required to reduce emissions by more than their own significant contributions to a downwind State’s nonattainment. EPA has used the good neighbor provision to impose massive emissions reduction requirements on upwind States without regard to the limits imposed by the statutory text. Whatever its merits as a policy matter, EPA’s Transport Rule violates the statute. Second, the Clean Air Act affords States the initial opportunity to implement reductions required by EPA under the good neighbor provision. But here, when EPA quantified States’ good neighbor obligations, it did not allow the States the initial opportunity to implement the required reductions with respect to sources within their borders. Instead, EPA quantified States’ good neighbor obligations and simultaneously set forth EPA-designed Federal Implementation Plans, or FIPs, to implement those obligations at the State level. By doing so, EPA departed from its consistent prior approach to implementing the good neighbor provision and violated the Act.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the majority opinion, created more jobs with that decision that Obama did throughout his tenure.
While this is definitely a big victory, and underscores the importance of putting conservatives on the DC Circuit Court (which has original jurisdiction over many federal policy issues), we still need to continue a robust legislative assault against these cap and trade style regulations. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act still serve as an albatross around the necks of job creators and can still be used to justify many of the impending regulations, even after the court’s decision.
When Republicans take back control of government, they must move to roll back most federal involvement in regulation of pollution. With the states more than happy to pick up the slack, especially the blue states, federal involvement in this regulatory scheme can only be harmful. Rules and regulations that could potentially affect the lifeline of local economies must only be debated and implemented on a local level.
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Now it’s up to the EPA to decide if it will recognize the court’s authority in this.
-I’m not holding my breath (pun intended)
The rule of law means nothing to these people. It is clear now what Obama meant by fundamental transformation.
Dear Readers:
This article is quoted in toto from another blog. Any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors are those of the original author. Take your Net Grammar Nanny comments there.
This is an excellent ruling!
Wow this big!
Liberals in big cities with factories and millions of cars and truck contributing to air pollution love to point fingers at places with not air quality problem. I have never understood the theory of inverse diffusion where emissions from coal plants concentrates in cities without coal plants.
When you check http://www.airnow.gov/ make sure you look at actual not forecast. Tomorrow is always worse.
One of my favorite examples of an organized lie is EPA Cross-State Air Pollution Rule web site. You only have to dig a little bit to find that the health hazards EPA blames all coal is really old data and not from coal.
If you go to another EPA web site, they brag about what a good job we are doing reducing air pollution. And we have.
While I am certainly in favor of reducing air pollution, Obama’s EPA has declared war on coal without any consideration of cost.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. I’ve been to countries bereft of pollution control, to the detriment of its citizens’ human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is no question in my mind that CO2 is NOT a pollutant. However, there is ample evidence that from time to time, human endeavors to make a buck have unleashed true and horrible pollutants. Getting rid of all pollution control efforts and/or leaving it up to the will of powerful local groups is exchanging one tyrant for another in terms of individual liberty.
“While I am certainly in favor of reducing air pollution, Obama’s EPA has declared war on coal without any consideration of cost.” –Kit P.
Yes. The main consideration may be that, by banning coal usage here, the price will drop, making it cheaper for China to buy up our huge coal reserves to feed its massive power plants through the 21st Century.
Pamela – this is more about reigning in a rogue bureaucracy than containing pollution. The EPA has been operating under agenda-driven policies far too long. There is an intelligent way to accomplish the goal of pollution control without tossing out the economy with the bath water.
While this is a victory, it is a technical victory only and so somewhat hollow.
Pamela Gray August 22 , 2012 a 8:34 am , I disagree totaly with your idea the feds should be involved in regulation of anything within the bounds of state lines . The states should individualy have the authority to regulate themselves while only involving the feds when disagreements arise between states and even then the courts should be the ones to rule . The EPA is a good example of the insanity that prevails when beaurocrats have control .
“cole-fired” ==> “coal-fired”
The only way to truly reign in the EPA and every other government agency gone wild is to cleanse the White House, Senate and House of Representatives of all the leftist/liberal/progressive democrats. For those of you who don’t think this is a political issue, you haven’t been keeping track of who is doing what.
Jay Davis
“Amidst Obama’s inexorable war on American energy, consumers, jobs, and prosperity,”
I think that’s probably the best point in the whole article. At some point it has to dawn on Obama that he is borrowing money from China that was earned from economic activity that was driven out of the USA. The economic activity that he seeks to strangle to save the planet from climate change doesn’t die, it simply moves to a jurisdiction where it is exempt, and generates the very money that he needs to borrow because he no longer has the tax revenue from that same economic activity. So the regulations do exactly zero to save the planet, destroy the American economy, and then he borrows the money from the off shore economy he created which must be re-paid with interest which creates the false prosperity that is causing economic collapse in Europe.
In business we talk about achieving “win-win”. This is “lose-lose-lose”.
Pamela Gray says:
August 22, 2012 at 8:34 am
“Getting rid of all pollution control efforts and/or leaving it up to the will of powerful local groups is exchanging one tyrant for another in terms of individual liberty.”
I hope you don’t mean to imply this ruling rolls back all limitations on emissions. It just means we continue to use the older cap and trade system for SO2 and NOx called CAIR, the Clean Air Interstate Rule. It also means EPA can’t make emitters control more than the law requires and that the emissions must actually cross a state border before you can use this rule to regulate them. Imagine that.
The “Big Enviro” commenters (like the NRDC and Sierra Club) suggest thousands of deaths will be caused by this ruling. Show me the bodies.
Affordable power – 1
Knee-jerk stupidity – 0
Pamela Gray: There is some room for a scaled down clean air act and clean water act, but these laws as written give carte blanche to any zealot in power to invent whatever “science” they want in order to punish large portions of the economy and ultimately enslave the populous. If the bills were written correctly, there would be almost no “rule-making authority” in the federal government. Congress has been derelict in its duty in not passing the specifications directly. The phrase “the secretary shall determine” creates limitless power for federal political appointees with very little check and balance, and allows the EPA administrator to cherry pick data to make a finding of danger to regulate just about anything. The EPA could literally outlaw food if they could make the finding that it somehow affected water or air quality by some imperceptible amount. There has already been a move on bakeries for their wanton release of CO2 by the yeast rising the bread. Where will it end. When the government can regulate energy and food, there is no freedom for the people in anything. The ultimate tyranny is sitting starving in the dark due to government action.
Obama is 100% for international socialism.
Why do you think socialist Norway gave him the peace price for no obvius reason?
Pamela Gray says:
August 22, 2012 at 8:34 am
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. I’ve been to countries bereft of pollution control, to the detriment of its citizens’ human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is no question in my mind that CO2 is NOT a pollutant. However, there is ample evidence that from time to time, human endeavors to make a buck have unleashed true and horrible pollutants. Getting rid of all pollution control efforts and/or leaving it up to the will of powerful local groups is exchanging one tyrant for another in terms of individual liberty.
The EPA has stopped being an environmental protection agency, they have become an industry prevention agency.
An analogy:
** Everyone believes that it is a good idea to have clean well functioning drains.
** Some people may disinfect their drains.
** The EPA would enforce regulations that the drains be kept sterile at all times disallowing their use as drains – because bad drains are a health hazard.
The EPA regulations are just a roundabout way of closing down the fossil fuel industry.
The EPA are also working on imposing industrial dust standards for micro particulates on farmland. Preventing farming from being carried out.
The EPA should be defunded as soon as possible as they are successfully carrying out an end-run around Congress and imposing by regulation restrictions that Congress has voted down as laws. Ideally every EPA regulation from 2000 onward should be rescinded until approved by Congress as a formal single issue vote. Each regulation to have a ‘sunset clause’ requiring a vote every say 4 years to keep the regulation in place.
The EPA would be better constructed if it were a conference of state representatives from individual state environmental agencies.
Is there a ruling somewhere against cross-state toxic politics?
Here’s your sign. 🙂
johnmcguire says:
August 22, 2012 at 9:08 am
Pamela Gray August 22 , 2012 a 8:34 am , I disagree totaly with your idea the feds should be involved in regulation of anything within the bounds of state lines . The states should individualy have the authority to regulate themselves while only involving the feds when disagreements arise between states and even then the courts should be the ones to rule . The EPA is a good example of the insanity that prevails when beaurocrats have control .
I agree that the EPA is out of control. But air pollution is clearly NOT within the bounds of state lines. Water pollution going into interstate navigatable waterways such as the Mississippi are NOT within the bounds of state lines. Clearly the sort of thing the federal government should be doing. But it should be doing it by law, not by regulation.
“However, there is ample evidence that from time to time, human endeavors to make a buck have unleashed true and horrible pollutants.”
Did you know that for such federal groups as EPA and OSHA, their regulations have actually impeded development of cleaner and safer surroundings? I know someone who was the CEO of a utility for almost 30 years. He told me they would be approached by the EPA over the years with an offer to use their scientists to retrofit their company to meet some new EPA regulation. He said they always turned them down because EPA science was so far behind the times. He also said that the EPA wanted to extend special loans so that later the EPA officials could claim that all the improvements came as a result of the EPA. They just went ahead and did everything themselves in a way that was far cheaper than using the EPA would have been with results that were far better. Besides, the EPA is responsible for hundreds of millions of cases of sickness and death from malaria because of the political decision made by a single administrator. The most polluted places on earth in modern times have been in countries with total political control, such as the former Soviet Union and China. Local control has the benefit of limiting damage and sparking innovation. That, together with a good tort system, in which those who have experienced harm can sue for compensation. This, of course, does not include activist groups who have been given automatic standing to sue on behalf of some group who has not yet suffered any harm. This abuse of the tort system has itself cost the economy dearly.
And USA have finnaly realised that a war on “global warming” is actually a war on use of energy and to kill economic growth?
The EPA is a bureaucracy. The problem inherent to any bureaucracy is that it can make regulations that have the effect of law but were never voted on. That’s bad. The EPA is part of the Executive Branch, not the Legislative Branch of the US Government. The Executive Branch is not supposed to have legislative powers.
The EPA needs to be more accountable to Congress. They are supposed to be internally regulated by actual science. They are no longer. They are a tool used to promote an agenda, not protect the environment for our citizens.
A gun in the hands of an honest citizen is a good thing. A gun in the hands of a criminal is not.
Let’s review the syle book, shall we?
reign: what a king does
rein(s): how you control a horse, or the EPA
rain: drops keep fallin’ on my head
PS The USEPA has mandated “lead free” brass for potable water fixtures in the US (modeled on the California regs) and it will soon be implemented (Check with your state EPA to see when.). The price of brass fixtures is going to rise, maybe even double. (The lead in brass alloys help the molten metal to fill all the voids during casting. No lead, more voids, more rejects.) If you have any home improvement projects that involve plumbing, don’t wait to long to buy the fixtures. And when your water bill goes up, part of that will reflect the increased cost of replacing/repairing brass fixtures in the distribution system. (If a brass valve or meter is opened to replace a part, if it’s not already “lead free” brass, the whole thing will need to be replaced.)