Congress, Courts, Environment, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Supreme Court Limits EPA Authority In Regulation Of Greenhouse Gases

scalia220px-AlfedPalmersmokestacksAssociate Justice Antonin Scalia eked out a victory against the Environmental Protection Agency in a 5-4 opinion today limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. However, the decision however does not prevent the EPA from using other means to regulate the pollutants linked to global warming. Specifically the vote means that the Clean Air Act does not allow for the EPA require a point source to obtain a PSD or Title 5 permit. The vote was a straight ideological division with Justice Anthony Kennedy joining his conservative colleagues in the majority. The majority held that “A brief review of the relevant statutory provisions leaves no doubt that the PSD program and Title V are designed to apply to, and cannot rationally be extended beyond, a relative handful of large sources capable of shouldering heavy substantive and procedural burdens.” Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency is the lead case of six cases on the regulation of greenhouse gases.


The decision reverses part of the 2012 opinion supporting the authority of the EPA on requiring permits for some industries. However, the difference may be quite small. The EPA interpretation allows the agency to reach some eighty-six percent of the targeted industrial sources while other means would still allow it to reach eighty-three percent.

As we discussed earlier, the Supreme Court ruled previously that EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as a threat to human health and to the environment. The EPA proceeded in June 2010 to deal with pollution from cars and trucks (“mobile sources”) and then larger, stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions. That latter move prompted a determined challenge from the all-powerful utility and energy industries both in Congress and the courts. The case saw a division of states, with California and New York supporting the administration. Scalia held that the D.C. Circuit failed to make a finer distinction between pollutants:

The Court of Appeals reasoned by way of a flawed syllogism: Under Massachusetts, the general, Act-wide definition of “air pollutant” includes greenhouse gases; the Act requires permits for major emitters of “any air pollutant”;therefore, the Act requires permits for major emitters of greenhouse gases. The conclusion follows from the premises only if the air pollutants referred to in the permit requiring provisions (the minor premise) are the same air pollutants encompassed by the Act-wide definition as interpreted in Massachusetts (the major premise). Yet no one—least of all EPA—endorses that proposition, and it is obviously untenable.

The Act-wide definition says that an air pollutant is“any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, [or] radioactive . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” §7602(g). In Massachusetts, the Court held that the Act-wide definition includes greenhouse gases because it is all-encompassing; it “embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe.” 549 U. S., at 529. But where the term “air pollutant” appearsin the Act’s operative provisions, EPA has routinely given it a narrower, context-appropriate meaning.

Recall that in April, the Court handed a big victory to the Administration in another case in upholding the regulation over 28 states in the Midwest and South to reduce ozone and fine particle emissions that flow north and east into other states.

The Court closed the door on PSD and Title V but left another open:

To sum up: We hold that EPA exceeded its statutory authority when it interpreted the Clean Air Act to require PSD and Title V permitting for stationary sources based on their greenhouse-gas emissions. Specifically, the Agency may not treat greenhouse gases as a pollutant for purposes of defining a “major emitting facility” (or a “modification” thereof) in the PSD context or a “major source” inthe Title V context. To the extent its regulations purport to do so, they are invalid. EPA may, however, continue to treat greenhouse gases as a “pollutant subject to regulation under this chapter” for purposes of requiring BACT for “anyway” sources. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Here is the opinion.

145 thoughts on “Supreme Court Limits EPA Authority In Regulation Of Greenhouse Gases”

  1. Christopher Booker of The Telegraph reported on 6/21/14 that NOAA “fiddled”[lied] about 20th century data and the US has been cooling since the 1930’s. Lies, liars, and thieves, taking our taxes and giving it to billionaires for green energy.

  3. Oh, good…. as my house goes under water, from rising oceans, in South Florida, I’ll gasp out Scuuzzillia’s name as I drown………. In the mean time, though, I’ll just pray that the Juicetice Scalia gets struck by a bolt of lightening from a summer storm.

  6. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. – Rhett Butler, GWTW.

  7. More BS: “I don’t bet because people on here do not pay their debts.”

    I’m on here and I’ve paid every bet I ever lost.

  8. Too bad that 25 years from now, when we’ve melted the arctic and millions are dying and billions are being wasted trying to fix the damage, none of you guys will be man enough to apologize and admit you were wrong.

    Anyone wants to bet, you know how to contact me. I won’t hold my breath.

    1. I don’t bet because people on here do not pay their debts. Someone, who shall remain nameless, owes me $1000 for a bet they lost.

  11. Scott Supak

    So, no one willing to bet?

    Shocking…
    =================
    I am betting on your side of this one.

  12. Paul C. Schulte

    Dredd – Steyn is a defendant in the suit.
    =============================
    You are correct.

    I am starting a series on the case, so I looked closer and I stand corrected on that issue.

    I will say that Steyn made a mistake of the “me thinks thou protest too loudly” sort.

    Anyway, thanks for the correction.

    I will follow this case very closely on my blog.

  13. “new Bible”

    More BS. If the science is wrong, it will correct itself.

    I’m willing to bet it’s not. How about you, Svoogle?

  14. Svoogle: “halt economic progress ”

    Complete BS. No one wants to halt progress. Even Laffer is willing to trade a carbon tax for a lower corporate tax.

  16. Always funny how shrill ecologists get when their dogma is questioned. Also funny to see how religion keeps operating based on the same principles. Apocalypticism has been around forever, and it always works for the high priests as a way to control the masses. Sad, actually!

    To the ecologists: yes, CO2 traps heat. Yes, humans contribute to that factor. This is one of the few things we understand about climate. The hundreds of other factors which we do not fully understand, or are not even aware of, are what constitutes omitted variable bias in all those “sophisticated” computer models that are now the new Bible. So excuse me for not wanting to halt economic progress in the world based on your paranoia driven assumptions.

  17. I don’t hate business, so why are you lying about me? I’m willing to pay for the costs of what I use. I don’t want to shift the costs of anything onto anyone else.

    You do.

    What gives you that right?

  18. Scott, Cost shifting happens all over the place. Do you eat bacon? Do you play sports? Do you go to see others play sports? Do you have a gym membership? Just because you hate business, doesn’t mean that they are all corrupt.

    As for the gene pool, what are we 2? Well your ugly, so there.

  19. Paul C. Schulte

    Dredd – by the time National Review gets done with him he won’t have the money to prosecute the suit much less sue me. Saying that he hides his data is the truth. The defense to either libel or slander is ‘the truth.”
    ================
    In every so called defense, the jury decides the truth.

    The National Review already apologized and will settle with Michael Mann, Phd. or the jury will settle with them.

    The court clearly said “a reasonable finder of fact is likely to find in favor of the plaintiff on each of Counts I-VI, including the Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress alleged in Count VI” and went on to say the same about Count VII.

    Your position is not tenable as a matter of the law of the case at this point.

    So, you are with the Frisbeetarians on this one.

  20. Yet another comment without a proposed bet… You really aren’t very sure about this, are you Schulte? (I see nothing… I hear nothing…)

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