Today the Supreme Court blocked a key effort by the Obama administration to keep unsafe levels of mercury and other toxins from spilling into our air. The ruling, issued in Michigan vs. EPA, is a loss for the EPA and public health advocates. But the damage can be contained and will hopefully not prevent the agency from re-issuing its so-called Mercury Rule under a rationale that can satisfy the Court’s newly divined decision-making standards.
At issue was whether the Clean Air Act required the EPA to consider costs to industry when it made the decision to regulate mercury, a known neurotoxin. Because the Act does not mention cost considerations at this early stage of rulemaking, the EPA reasoned such review was unnecessary. At any rate, the EPA had explicitly considered costs in the second stage of analysis when it chose the actual numeric pollution limit. And what it found was that the benefits of the Mercury Rule would exceed the costs by tens of billions of dollars.
Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia found that the EPA’s failure to consider costs in the early stage of the rule doomed the whole enterprise. The EPA’s decision-making process, according to the Court, did not meet the Act’s requirement of considering all “appropriate and necessary” information.
That’s disappointing, but the loss could have been much worse. In the briefing, opponents of the mercury rule argued to require full cost-benefit analysis rather than simply considering costs. Opponents had also argued that EPA should not be able to count all the indirect health benefits (from reductions in accompanying pollutants) that come from mercury limits. Funny those opponents of the rule had no problem counting the indirect costs that come from mercury limits. The Court’s decision did neither of these two things.
And that leaves open the possibility that the Obama Administration can still keep mercury out of our air. If the courts allow the Mercury Rule to stand until EPA is able to revise its analysis, the agency can then insert a consideration of costs at the earlier stage of its examination. That’s only fair.
Regulations to protect Americans from mercury pollution have been in the works for a long time. Rules to regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and their co-pollutants were first proposed by the EPA under the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration’s efforts to move the mercury rule would result in between 4,200-11,000 fewer premature deaths a year, 4,700 fewer heart attacks and 130,000 fewer asthma attacks, among other public health benefits.
The Court’s decision was narrow enough to preserve the rule and its vital contribution to public health and the environment.
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Robert Verchick | June 29, 2015
Today the Supreme Court blocked a key effort by the Obama administration to keep unsafe levels of mercury and other toxins from spilling into our air. The ruling, issued in Michigan vs. EPA, is a loss for the EPA and public health advocates. But the damage can be contained and will hopefully not prevent the agency from […]
Thomas McGarity | June 29, 2015
In a sweeping display of judicial activism the Supreme Court has made it much harder for the EPA to protect Americans from the dangers of exposure to mercury emissions. The Supreme Court today tossed out EPA’s regulations protecting the American public from mercury and other hazardous emissions of power plants. Justice Scalia refused to defer […]
Lisa Heinzerling | June 26, 2015
The Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell is, of course, most important for its central holding that the Affordable Care Act’s federal subsidies are available even on federally established health exchanges. The decision preserves health insurance subsidies for millions of people who have begun to benefit from them and avoids the ridiculous spectacle of taking the […]
Erin Kesler | June 26, 2015
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2576, an update to the long-outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which governs regulation of toxic chemicals. CPR Member Scholar and University of Richmond Law School professor Noah Sachs and CPR Executive Director Matthew Shudtz wrote a piece for The Hill, highlighting some crucial problems with the bill the House […]
Rena Steinzor | June 25, 2015
Anyone who cares about the development of sound public policy has grown distraught over congressional gridlock. The House and Senate are dysfunctional to an extent not seen in modern times. Neither is able to develop bipartisan legislation to deal with a slew of urgent social problems, from immigration and the minimum wage to the strengthening […]
Evan Isaacson | June 24, 2015
TMDL. The first four posts cover the region as a whole, and then Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. Future posts will explore the progress of the remaining three jurisdictions. So far, we have evaluated progress of the three core jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in reducing nutrient and […]
James Goodwin | June 23, 2015
When your public approval rating has hovered at or below 20 percent for the last several years, maybe the last thing you should be doing is maligning other government institutions. That didn’t stop a group of Senators from spending several hours doing just that today during a joint hearing involving the Senate Budget and Homeland […]
Katie Tracy | June 23, 2015
Every day, millions of consumers endure Walmart’s crowded parking lots and cramped aisles for the chance to buy retail goods and groceries at low prices. Perhaps some visitors find value in the prospect of starring in the next caught-on-camera video like last week’s hit filmed at a store in Beech Grove, Indiana. But the lower […]
Matt Shudtz | June 22, 2015
Last week, OSHA issued noteworthy citations against a poultry slaughtering facility in Delaware. The agency is using its General Duty Clause to hold Allen Harim Foods in Harbeson, Delaware responsible for ergonomic hazards that plague the entire industry—hazards involving the repetitive cutting and twisting motions that lead to musculoskeletal disorders like tendonitis and carpal tunnel […]