A three-judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court in Washington, D.C., has placed a hold on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which would been implemented on New Year’s Day. “Petitioners have satisfied the standards required for a stay, pending court review,” Judges Brett Kavanaugh, Thomas Griffith, and Janice Rogers Brown said in the brief ruling.
The judicial decision, announced on Friday, December 30, was made in response to a request for a stay from a coalition of more than a dozen electric power companies, municipal power plant operators, and U.S. states.
According to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose state is among the six that requested the stay, it was attained on the grounds that the new regulations would jeopardize “the reliability of Texas’ electrical grid, threatening hard-working Texans’ jobs, and burdening Texas families with higher electricity prices.”
The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), issued last July 7, was intended to shield 240 million Americans in 27 eastern states who live downwind from coal-fired power plants. Without further regulation, according to the EPA, the plants will continue to disgorge thousands of tons of smokestack emissions—including compounds that cause soot, smog and acid rain.
The agency estimates that the mandated cleanup would impose an additional cost on utilities of less than $1 billion a year and that the cleaner air would prevent as many as 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks, and hundreds of thousands of cases of asthma and other respiratory ailments annually.
Quoted in Texas Courthouse News, Abbott argued that, “The court's decision to issue a stay of the EPA's legally flawed cross-state air pollution rule is a prudent one that now gives the court time to review the regulation and its burdensome effects on Texas," adding that the EPA failed to comply with laws that require federal agencies to inform the public of rule proposals in advance, so that affected parties can participate in the process. He said the EPA included Texas in the final CSAPR regulations without providing notice.
The complainants also argued that revisions made in October to the rule should invalidate the entire process.
The EPA, in a statement, said it was confident that the rule ultimately would be upheld on its merits. But the agency said it was "disappointing" the regulation's health benefits would be delayed, even if temporarily.
Earlier in 2011, Republicans in Congress had attempted to block the rule by using legislation, saying it would shutter some older, coal-fired power plants and kill jobs. However, in November, the Senate rejected an attempt to stay the regulation, with the help of six moderate Republicans— including Mark Kirk (R-IL), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Scott Brown (R-MA), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH.
What’s more, the White House had threatened to veto what it characterized as “this brazen effort,” stating “Republicans in Congress are trying to use our current economic climate as an excuse to roll back clean air protections that Americans have counted on for decades.”
On the other side, Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group of power companies, said in a December 30 statement that the ruling was the "first step to setting it right," adding, "The underlying rule was the subject of hasty process, poor technical support, unequal application and substantial threat to jobs, power bills and reliability."
Specifically, six states—Texas, Nebraska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, and Ohio— had asked the court for the delay. All would have had to reduce pollution from their power plants under the regulation. They were joined by the National Mining Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; as well as local power plants and power generating companies, including Homer City, Pennsylvania-based EME Homer City Generation LP, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings (owner of TXU Energy, Luminant, and Oncor), and Houston-based GenOn Energy.
According to Bloomberg News, the coalition’s effort is opposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council; power companies such as Chicago-based Exelon Corp; and states such as New York and Illinois.
The ruling orders the parties to submit proposed briefing schedules by January 17 so that the oral arguments may be heard by April. The case is EME Homer City Generation LP v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 11-1302, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Washington).
Cheryl Kaften is an accomplished communicator who has written for consumer and corporate audiences. She has worked extensively for MasterCard (News - Alert) Worldwide, Philip Morris USA (Altria), and KPMG, and has consulted for Estee Lauder and the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspapers. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
