Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
6/27/2014
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 this week to uphold the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to require greenhouse gas emission permits from larger emitters that already require permits for other pollutants. The ruling came in a case that challenged the power of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases from large stationary sources under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permitting program and Title V. When EPA concluded that such an obligation existed, they adjusted the statutory emission thresholds to facilitate the regulation of greenhouse gases under the (PSD) permitting and Title V programs which aim to prevent the deterioration of air quality.
The Court found that the EPA overstepped its bounds in requiring greenhouse gas permits from sources the court says are not covered by the Clean Air Act. “EPA asserts newfound authority to regulate millions of small sources—including retail stores, offices, apartment buildings, shopping centers, schools, and churches—and to decide, on an ongoing basis and without regard for the thresholds prescribed by Congress, how many of those sources to regulate. We are not willing to stand on the dock and wave goodbye as EPA embarks on this multiyear voyage of discovery,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority decision. Emissions from these sources account for 3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Will Case Impact EPA’s Proposed Rule for New or Existing Power Plants?
While the Court’s decision this week does not directly affect the EPA’s recently proposed regulations for new and existing coal-fired power plants, proponents of the EPA’s efforts to curb carbon emissions have said the case does provide a further legal standing for these regulations. "The Court has upheld the requirement that big new industrial facilities must use the best available control technology to curb all air pollutants, including the carbon pollution that drives climate change,” David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a NRDC release. “The decision builds on the Court’s prior decisions upholding most important Clean Air Act authority in the fight against global warming – EPA’s responsibility to set national standards to curb the carbon pollution emitted by automobiles and power plants. The EPA has just proposed standards to reduce carbon pollution from power plants, and that critical work will move ahead to protect Americans from the worst impacts of climate change.”
Opponents of wide-reaching carbon emission regulations, however, are citing the ruling as a step to rein in what they describe as EPA overreach. “EPA’s aggressive attempts to wrongly use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon took an indirect but solid hit with today’s ruling by the Supreme Court. For months, EPA has been working outside of Congressional authority and in blatant disregard of the enormous consequences that threaten to put America’s energy and economic future in peril to enact the President’s political agenda,” Laura Sheehan, senior vice president for communications of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity said in a release. “EPA and its environmentalist allies may like to believe today’s ruling stacks up in their favor but the facts are the facts. The Supreme Court today gave notice that it is wise to this administration’s creative interpretation of the Clean Air Act. We are hopeful EPA’s massive mission creep will be subject to the scrutiny it deserves and stricken down by the judiciary in the future.”
