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Supreme Court Upholds Most EPA Rules On Greenhouse Gases
UnknowingFool writes In Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled against the EPA on some limits to greenhouse gases but also upheld other limits. In a 5-4 partial decision, the high court ruled that EPA overstepped their authority in requiring permits only for greenhouse gases for new and modified facilities using the Clean Air act. Such regulatory action can only be granted by Congress. But in the same case on a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that the EPA can enforce greenhouse gas limits on facilities that already require permits for other air pollutants. This leaves intact most of the new regulations proposed by the Obama administration earlier this month as many coal plants produce other air pollutants that can be regulated by the EPA.
What the Supreme Court actually did was to disallow direct regulation of CO2 unless the EPA actually wants to attempt to regulate ALL producers of >250 tons annually, which is impractical.
What the EPA intended to do was to regulate producers of >100,000 tons annually, with the possibility of reducing that threshold over time as we get handle on the issue.
What the Supreme Court did leave intact is the ability to regulate CO2 production by producers who are already regulated for other reasons 'anyway'.
That does happen to match up fairly well with what the EPA intended to do originally, but does not allow the flexibility to regulate CO2 producers who do not produce large amounts of other pollution.
Can you cite the direct Congressional actions that outlawed diazinon or PCBs or even DDT? Yeah, I thought not. Those were all executive actions.