Today, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Michigan v. EPA.
CPR Member Scholar and University of Texas School of Law professor Thomas O. McGarity responded to the debate with the following statement:
Following today’s oral arguments, the Supreme Court must decide whether EPA misinterpreted a section in the Clean Air Act requiring it to regulate hazardous emissions from power plants when such regulation is “appropriate and necessary.” EPA interpreted those words to require the agency to focus on the harm that emissions of hazardous pollutants, like Mercury, can cause to human health and the environment, and not on how much it would cost industry to reduce those emissions.
EPA’s interpretation is fully consistent with the Clean Air Act’s precautionary approach to protecting public health and the environment from toxic emissions.
History has proved time and again that if EPA must consider costs in deciding whether to regulate, industry advocates will dominate the deliberations with inflated cost projections, and the agency will never get around to protecting the public.
The statute makes it clear that cost considerations are relevant in determining the stringency of controls that EPA requires, but they are not relevant in deciding whether to regulate toxic emissions in the first place.
The Supreme Court has on many occasions over the past 30 years held that reviewing courts are to defer to EPA’s interpretations of the Clean Air Act so long as they are reasonable.
The Court should uphold EPA’s reasonable interpretation in this case.
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Erin Kesler | March 25, 2015
Today, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Michigan v. EPA. CPR Member Scholar and University of Texas School of Law professor Thomas O. McGarity responded to the debate with the following statement: Following today’s oral arguments, the Supreme Court must decide whether EPA misinterpreted a section in the Clean Air Act requiring it to regulate hazardous […]
James Goodwin | March 25, 2015
When it comes to public safeguards, industry never wants to talk about keeping people healthy and protecting the environment; they’d much rather have a conversation about how safeguards will cut into their profits — the costs in the cost-benefit equation. Even on matters where Congress, by statute, has made the discussion of regulatory costs legally […]
James Goodwin | March 25, 2015
In the run-up to this morning’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit hazardous air pollutants from fossil-fueled power plants—and indeed throughout the oral arguments themselves—opponents repeatedly pointed out that the benefits of the rule in reducing mercury pollution were “only” between $4 million and $6 million. Putting […]
Erin Kesler | March 24, 2015
In the United States, a handful of large corporations including Perdue and Tyson direct and oversee nearly every step in the poultry production process, essentially serving as overlords to the tens of thousands of small farmers with whom they contract to raise their chickens for slaughter. While deriving the lion’s share of the profit, these […]
Erin Kesler | March 23, 2015
Last Friday marked the 10 year anniversary of the BP Texas City Refinery explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 others. In an opinion piece for the Houston Chronicle, CPR President Rena Steinzor describes the systemic failures which led to the explosion and the regulatory gaps that remain. She calls for criminal investigations, “everytime refinery operations kill, maim, or threaten […]
Matt Shudtz | March 20, 2015
Last week, workers’ advocates at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Nebraska Appleseed got the official word that OSHA will not develop new regulations to protect the men and women who do the dirty work of turning clucking chickens into boneless cutlets. It’s an industry where vulnerable workers—mostly women, immigrants, and folks geographically isolated from […]
Erin Kesler | March 18, 2015
Today, CPR Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin will testify as an expert witness on the regulatory process for a House Committee on Small Business Hearing, “Tangled in Red Tape: New Challenges for Small Manufacturers.” Goodwin’s testimony highlights the economic as well as public health and safety benefits of regulations in relation to small businesses. He notes: […]
Matt Shudtz | March 16, 2015
What’s old is new again. This week, competing bills to reform the 40-year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) hit the Senate—one from Senators Vitter and Udall, the other from Senators Boxer and Markey. Both the environmental community and the chemical industry agree that TSCA is broken and must be fixed. This is a law that’s so poorly […]
Celeste Monforton | March 9, 2015
This blog is cross-posted from the Pump Handle. It’s a rare thing on Capitol Hill when a member of the Administration is on the hot seat from both sides of the aisle. But that’s what happened on Tuesday when President Obama’s regulatory czar, Howard Shelanski, JD, PhD, testified at a joint hearing of two subcommittees of the House […]