Supreme Court Blocks Obama’s Limits on Power Plants

[onehandle]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday blocked one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives, one meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

Industry groups and some 20 states challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate the emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into account the punishing costs its regulations would impose.

The Clean Air Act required the regulations to be “appropriate and necessary.” The challengers said the agency had run afoul of that law by deciding to regulate the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis.

The agency responded that it was not required to take costs into account when it made the initial determination to regulate. But the agency added that it did so later in setting emissions standards and that, in any event, the benefits far outweighed the costs.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/us/supreme-court-blocks-obamas-limits-on-power-plants.html

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A gift from conservative corporate SCOTUS to big coal.

[MBS]

1. Uggh.

BOO. Frustrating and infuriating.
5-4- vote, with Scalia (double uggh) writing the majority opinion, and Elena Kagan writing the dissent. Classic.
All the more reason why we MUST get a Democrat into the White House in 2016. And a Democratic Senate to smooth the confirmation process for any Supreme Court justices who are nominated.

[riversedge]

2. Mother Earth is sad right now...

Mother Earth is sad right now...http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/29/supreme-court-clean-air/28366777/ … #climatechange #p2

[iandhr]

3. This is disappointing

But you win some and you lose some

[Orrex]

4. I feel bad for Ted Cruz

He's probably complaining about this out-of-control imperialist court again.

[underpants]

5. Costs for putting poison into the ground and water should be punishing

Profit before people - we got it

[Fred Sanders]

6. So just do a "cost-benefit analysis" before the regulation....piece of cake...Big Coal is doomed,

market forces guarantee it...a Pyrrhic victory for the pollution lovers.

[Triana]

7. "punishing costs" of regulation. What about the PUNISHING COST

of not having clean air to breathe and the disease and sickness their filth causes every other inhabitant on the goddamned planet?

I guess corprat dollars overrides all of that. Just another form of corprat welfare. WE die so they can PROFIT.

Bullshit.

[asiliveandbreathe]

8. Okay - so the EPA just needs to create a cost-benefit analysis

I would think we have plenty of experts to choose from - headline "BLOCKS" is seriously misleading....IMHO

Fail to take into account the PUNISHING costs its regulations would impose - get real - the PUNISHING cost to the environment needs to be included as well... and as we all know - before the TPP gets that up or down vote..this I hope - gets the Prez full attention - it has gotten the environmentalists and the Popes attention...

Wouldn't you think the polluters would want an environmentally safe world??? - Oh, silly me!

Still, a great day/week for America....

[padfun]

9. they had to throw a crumb

to keep the base happy, especially after ALL THOSE RECENT LOSSES!

[former9thward]

11. This was not a crumb.

It affects all EPA regulations not just coal. Many legal experts considered this to be the most important case of the year in the long term. More important legally that gay marriage or the ACA.

[librarylu]

10. I was really enthused about this court....

....for a whole day.

[still_one]

14. I had no illusion. However, it just illustrates another reason why voting Democrat is so important

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

17. Exactly

Elections matter and this decision illustrates why.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

12. Funny seeing Hillary supporters upset.

She supports "clean coal".

“We are going to use coal,” Clinton told voters during campaign stop in Indiana.

“There’s no doubt about that,” Clinton added. “It’s just that we’ve got to figure out how to make it as clean as coal can be.” - Clinton 2008

[bucolic_frolic]

13. Mercury vapor is so toxic

for those who have had mercury toxicity, this is the lamest decision ever

Scalia is a Mad Hatter

Autism, birth defects, cancer, all have a mercury component.

Costs and cost benefit analysis is how Big Business manipulates the debate

Those numbers can be ANYTHING they want them to be because all one has to do
is tweak the assumptions or numbers.

Very sad that someone so reactionary and dim-witted sits on the Supreme Court

[Auggie]

15. Gina McCarthy of the EPA predicted differently on the 6-26-15 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher

5-4 vote. I wonder who the administration thought was the swing?

[RoccoR5955]

16. This is quite devistating.

Without controls on toxic emissions, we will pollute the planet even more. Greenhouse gasses as well.
Mercury is very dangerous, and well you all know the story of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
I guess that the Supreme Court does not believe that when our environment is concerned, there is no plan(et) B. Earth is still our ONLY home.

[blackspade]

18. What a train wreck.

[d_legendary1]

19. Thanks for putting the ocean on my front lawn SCOTUS!

May your tap water reek of toxic chemicals you just unleashed on the public.

[ananda]

20. Can states refuse to comply on the basis of their first amendment...

... religious views or their tenth amendment to states rights?

[totodeinhere]

21. Overall it was a good court session but this particular decision is wrong-headed.

It's almost as if they decided to throw the cons a couple of bones with this decision and the death penalty decision.

[asiliveandbreathe]

22. A liitle reasearch re this decision -

http://247wallst.com/commodities-metals/2015/06/29/supreme-court-ruling-does-not-save-the-coal-companies/

In the United States, many power plant operators have complied with the regulations and shut down the plants or are retrofitting them with equipment to scrub the smoke, or have plans in place to do one or the other. EPA administrator Gina McCarthy has said:


This is a rule that actually regulates toxic pollution emissions from primarily coal facilities … Most of [the coal-fired plants] are already in compliance, investments have been made, and we’ll catch up [even if the Supreme Court rules against the EPA].

EPA rules on carbon emission limits remain in force, and the Supreme Court already upheld in 2014 the across-state-line pollution rule for carbon emissions.


Not all is lost...just have to keep fighting the GOOD fight!