Supreme Court Backs E.P.A. Coal Pollution Rules

Supreme Court Backs E.P.A. Coal Pollution Rules

Tuesday, 29 April 2014 (2 hours ago)

The justices, 6-2, upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate coal-plant pollution that wafts across state lines from 27 Midwestern and Appalachian states to eastern states.
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Court Backs Rules for Coal Pollution

By CORAL DAVENPORT APRIL 29, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate coal-plant pollution that wafts across state lines from 27 Midwestern and Appalachian states to eastern states.

The 6-to-2 ruling is a major environmental victory for the Obama administration, which has instituted several new E.P.A. regulations under the Clean Air Act in an effort to crack down on coal pollution. Republicans and the coal industry have criticized the effort as a “war on coal.”

The regulations covering cross-state air pollution, also known as “good neighbor” rules, have pitted Rust Belt and Appalachian states like Ohio and Kentucky, which produce heavy pollution, against East Coast states including New York and Connecticut.

The agency argued that the rules were necessary to protect the health and environment of downwind states. East Coast states in particular are vulnerable to pollution blown by the prevailing westerly winds of the United States.

The utilities and 15 states on the other side argued that the rules, as written by the Obama administration’s environmental regulators, gave the E.P.A. too much regulatory authority and placed an unfair economic burden on the polluting states.

To comply with the regulations, electric utilities are expected to have to install costly pollution-control equipment on existing coal plants – or just shut them down.

Legal experts say the Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, may signal that the Obama administration’s other efforts to use the Clean Air Act to push through major environmental curbs on coal pollution will prove successful.

In June, the E.P.A. is expected to unveil a sweeping new climate change proposal, using the authority of the Clean Air Act to rein in carbon pollution from coal plants.

http://www.onenewspage.us/n/Science/...-Pollution.htm

SCOTUS Rules Against State Of Texas In EPA Cross-Border State Pollution Case

By RYAN POPPE

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Credit EPA

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2011 Cross-Border Pollution Provision that was added to the Federal Clean Air Act. The State of Texas led the opposition against the provision, which was meant to address air pollution drifting into neighboring states.

Supreme Court justices voted to overturn the lower court’s ruling on a vote of 6-2 in favor of the EPA’s rule that is designed to curb air pollution from coal-fired power plants that are located in 28 states.

Attorney General Greg Abbott has long fought against the provision.

In October 2013 Abbott said this added rule is a constitutional violation. But conservation groups like Environment Texas disagree.

“The Clean Air Act has a 'good neighbor' provision that allows and requires states that put pollution into cross-borders -- into another state -- to clean up that act,” said Luke Metzger, the director of Environment Texas.

Metzger said Texas has five of the dirties power plants in North America.

"So this is going to require those power plants to clean up and do things like switch to low-sulfur coal, increase their scrubber efficiency or install other readily-available pollution control technology,” Metzger said.

Abbott argued that will threaten Texas jobs and Texas employers.

Metzger said health benefits outweigh the cost of compliance.

The EPA estimates this added rule will save up to 1,700 lives in Texas, and nationwide will prevent 400,000 asthma attacks each year and save up to 34,000 lives with a net health benefit of $280 billion.

Reacting to SCOTUS ruling, Terry Clawson with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality provided a statement on behalf of the agency.

Clawson writes, While the commission is disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court did not fully uphold the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, we’re encouraged that the Court clearly acknowledged both the complexity of the interstate transport problem and that EPA’s authority is inherently limited by the Federal Clean Air Act. The court held that EPA cannot require a state to reduce pollution by more than is necessary to achieve attainment in every downwind state or require reductions at odds with the threshold for significant contribution that the EPA has set. Additionally, with the remand of the EPA rule back to the D.C. Circuit, the commission is hopeful the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals will review additional points of error that were not considered in its original opinion.

http://tpr.org/post/scotus-rules-aga...pollution-case

Half of U.S. lives with unhealthy air, says ALA's annual "State of the Air" report

http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs150/.../img/10194.jpgThe American Lung Association's (ALA) annual "State of the Air" report has found that half of Americans still live in counties where ozone or particle pollutions levels make the air unhealthy to breathe. The 15th annual national report card shows that while the nation overall continued to reduce particle pollution, a pollutant recently found to cause lung cancer, poor air quality remains a significant public health concern and a changing climate threatens to make it harder to protect human health. Especially alarming is that levels of ozone (smog), a powerful respiratory irritant and the most widespread air pollutant, were much worse than in the previous year's report. More