The EPA's Efforts to Reign in Climate Pollution from New Power Plants and the Supreme Court

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to reign in climate change causing pollution from new power plants but as with all such regulatory efforts they get a great deal of resistance from businesses and their political minions.

The effort to reduce carbon pollution from new power plants is currently being reviewed by the US Supreme Court. Beginning in February the country’s highest court began hearing oral arguments for Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA.

The case threatens to slow down the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon pollution in certain industrial sectors. This is yet another attack by the fossil fuel industry on the EPA’s regulatory authority.

This is hardly the first time the EPA has been challenged in court. In 2012, a coalition of industry trade groups and special interest organizations challenged the EPA’s authority to regulate dangerous greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Both the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court rejected the case and upheld the EPA’s authority. Reaffirming the agency’s ability to regulate carbon pollution from cars, power plants, and big industrial facilities.

The heart of the current case being argued before the Supreme Court challenges which parts of the Clean Air Act can be used to regulate what kinds of pollution sources and how. Simply put, those opposed to clean air and the war on climate change are trying to use legal technicalities to stymie the EPA regulatory authority.

It will take months before we get a decision and a number of groups including the Climate Reality Project are working to apprize people of the challenge and ask them to show their support for the EPA’s clean air agenda.