Supreme Court Declines Review of Decision to Uphold Controversial EPA Air Quality Rule
The Supreme Court of the United States has declined to review a lower court decision to uphold the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule while the EPA was completing a court ordered cost review. More than twenty-five states and multiple industry groups petitioned the Court to vacate the controversial rule.
The rule limits power plant emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants. The regulations set air pollution limits that individual facilities must meet by a certain date. This regulation applies to oil-fired and coal-burning plants and is estimated to regulate 1,400 electricity-generating units at 600 power plants. Roughly 60% of plants are already in compliance with the regulation.
In June of 2015, the Supreme Court held that the EPA failed to consider compliance costs when it created the emissions rule. Michigan v. EPA, 135 S. Ct. 2699 (2015). The justices remanded the case back to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to determine if the regulation should be vacated while the EPA completed a cost review. The D.C. Circuit ruled that the regulations could remain in place while the EPA completed its review. In reaction, a group of states asked the Supreme Court to order a stay to be placed on the regulations until the EPA completed its cost review. However, the request was declined. The Supreme Court’s decision to deny the states’ request to stay the regulations is in direct contrast with litigation over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. In February of 2015, the Supreme Court chose to order a stay of the Clean Power Plan regulations until litigation of the current challenge to the plan is complete.
In April of 2016, the EPA updated its regulations and announced that the regulations were necessary even taking into account the compliance costs footed by industry. 81 Fed. Reg. 24,420, 24,452 (Apr. 25, 2016). The EPA determined that the costs in consideration did not warrant alteration of its previous conclusion that the regulations on hazardous emissions from power plants were “appropriate and necessary”.