Healey, Markey disappointed by Supreme Court’s ruling on power plant
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down Obama administration efforts to rein in air pollution from power plants, saying the Environmental Protection Agency had improperly failed to consider costs when assessing the appropriateness of its regulations.
The court wrote that the EPA "refused to consider cost when making its decision" after estimating the cost of regulations to power plants would be $9.6 billion a year, but quantifiable benefits from reducing air pollution would be $4 million to $6 million per year.
"EPA must consider cost — including cost of compliance — before deciding whether regulation is appropriate and necessary," the court ruled in an opinion written by Judge Antonin Scalia and joined by four other justices. "It will be up to the Agency to decide (as always, within the limits of reasonable interpretation) how to account for cost."
In the dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan said the EPA had conducted a study that found benefits of its Clean Air Act rules would exceed costs by up to nine times, or by as much as $80 billion each year. "Those benefits include as many as 11,000 fewer premature deaths annually, along with a far greater number of avoided illnesses," Kagan wrote.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said the decision remanded the 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule to the EPA for additional proceedings pertaining to the rule's costs. All 50 states have fish consumption advisories in place related to mercury contamination, the attorney general's office pointed out.
Healey said the rule is already reducing toxic air emissions from power plants and offers benefits "which include preventing thousands of premature deaths annually and reducing exposure of pregnant women and developing fetuses to mercury" that outweigh the costs associated with controlling emissions.
"Given the decades-long delay in promulgating this rule, I urge the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the EPA to swiftly complete the necessary additional proceedings so that residents across Massachusetts and the nation will continue to be protected from these dangerous air pollutants," Healey said.
In a statement, Sen. Edward Markey said, "Today's ruling gives a long-sought victory to corporate polluters looking to protect their profits, not the public's health. Unfortunately the long road to regulating mercury will continue. It is dangerous toxic pollutant, and I urge the EPA to immediately reevaluate the rule to protect the health of Americans, especially our children."
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