Supremes on Michigan v. EPA

June 30th, 2015

Supremes_2015

Here it is, Michigan v. EPA:

Michigan v. EPA   U.S. Supreme Court File No. 14-46

Given this decision, it’s going to be hard for any agency to argue that it shouldn’t do a solid cost benefit analysis, and one that includes verification and analysis of benefits!  That’s a good thing given the outrageous benefits claims I’ve seen in transmission proceedings.  Check this part of the Order early on (I’m just going over it now):

In accordance with Executive Order, the Agency issued a “Regulatory Impact Analysis” alongside its regulation.This analysis estimated that the regulation would force power plants to bear costs of $9.6 billion per year. Id., at 9306. The Agency could not fully quantify the benefits of reducing power plants’ emissions of hazardous air pollutants; to the extent it could, it estimated that these benefits were worth $4 to $6 million per year. Ibid. The costs to power plants were thus between 1,600 and 2,400 times as great as the quantifiable benefits from reduced emissions of hazardous air pollutants. The Agency continued that its regulations would have ancillary benefits—including cutting power plants’ emissions of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide, substances that are not covered by the hazardous-air-pollutants program. Although the Agency’s appropriate-and-necessary finding did not rest on these ancillary effects, id., at 9320, the regulatory impact analysis took them into account, increasing the Agency’s estimate of the quantifiable benefits of its regulation to $37 to $90 billion per year, id., at 9306. EPA concedes that the regulatory impact analysis “played no role” in its appropriate-and-necessary finding. Brief for Federal Respondents 14.

Michigan v. EPA, p. 4.  The regulatory impact analysis included the information, it was in the record, but EPA says that it “played no role” in that decision.  So can’t they just reissue it, state they took that into account and used it as a basis for its decision and everyone can go home?  AAAARGH!

And here’s a highlight where I actually agree (!) with a sentence in Thomas’ Concurrence:

Statutory ambiguity thus becomes an implicit delegation of rule-making authority, and that authority is used not to find the best meaning of the text, but to formulate legally binding rules to fill in gaps based on policy judgments made by the agency rather than Congress.

Dissents, p. 3 (pdf p. 20 of 47).

 

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