U.S. Supreme Court upholds EPA’s authority to set air quality standards

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to consider reducing the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to set air quality standards; the court’s decision means that the tough new limit on sulfur dioxide emissions will remain in place.
 
Grupo Mexico SAB’s Asarco LLC appealed a lower court ruling that upholds a 2010 EPA rule limiting sulfur dioxide in the air to 75 parts per billion over an hour. Exposure to sulfur dioxide, even on a short- term basis, has been known to cause respiratory problems. The Supreme Court decided not to hear the appeal.
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is authorized to adopt standards that are necessary to protect the public health.
U.S. President Barack Obama, in his inauguration speech, made the politically charged issue of climate change a top priority for his second term. He cited a need to protect future generations from man-made pollutants. Hence, the Supreme Court ruling is said to be a victory for the Obama administration.
 
“The EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases during Obama’s first term have been upheld in court, which is a favorable sign for proponents of climate change regulation,” said David Uhlmann, a University of Michigan law professor and former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is authorized to adopt standards that are necessary to protect the public health, while allowing an “adequate margin of safety.”
 
“The phrase ‘adequate margin of safety’ provides a needed buffer, given that the line where environmental harms become significant is too often very difficult to predict until after a harmful situation occurs,” said Zygmunt Plater, a professor at Boston College Law School. Leaving the D.C. Circuit ruling intact “suggests that implementation of protective regulations are not likely to be as constrained as they might have been a decade ago,” he added.
 
Grupo Mexico SAB’s Asarco, one of the three main U.S. copper smelters, had been appealing a July decision by the Washington D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the EPA rule. The EPA rule could cost companies US$1.5 billion. In upholding the new standard, the D.C. Circuit said it lacked jurisdiction to review the EPA’s rulemaking and that the agency did not act arbitrarily or unreasonably. (January 22, 2013)