SCOTUS NEWS

Supreme Court declines to block EPA methane, mercury rules

The Supreme Court on Friday turned down a request from Republican-led states and industry groups to block a rule from the Environmental Protection Agency that imposes more stringent standards on emissions of hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants. At the same time, the justices turned down a similar request from Oklahoma and industry groups to block an EPA rule that seeks to regulate emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from crude-oil and natural gas facilities.  

Friday’s orders mean that both rules will remain in effect while challenges to them move forward in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

The orders leaving the EPA rules in place come three months after the Supreme Court put another EPA rule, intended to reduce air pollution that affects air quality in “downwind” states, on hold while challenges to it continue in the lower courts.

The EPA issued the first rule as part of the “Hazardous Air Pollutants” program established by the Clean Air Act, which targets pollutants – such as mercury, arsenic, and nickel – that can be toxic for humans.

The challengers – which include 23 Republican-led states, power plants, mining companies, and industry groups – went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking review of the rule. They also asked the court of appeals to put the rule on hold while the litigation went forward, but the D.C. Circuit rejected that request. The challengers then came to the Supreme Court in August, filing seven separate applications to stay the rule while the D.C. Circuit’s review continued.

The challengers complained that the new rule will impose billions of dollars in costs on power plants without providing any real public health benefits. Instead, the challengers suggested, the rule is part of a broader plan to (as the states, led by North Dakota contended) “force a nationwide transition away from coal for putative climate change reasons – pursuing a national policy choice this Court has expressly held the agency lacks authority to make.”

The EPA published the methane rule in March. Here too Oklahoma and the industry groups went first to the D.C. Circuit, seeking to challenge the rule and to have that court put it on hold while the litigation continued. The D.C. Circuit denied the request for a stay in July, prompting the challengers to come to the Supreme Court in August.

In brief unsigned orders on Friday, the justices turned down both sets of requests to put the rules on hold. The justices did not provide any explanation for their decisions, and there were no recorded dissents.

The court has not yet acted on a third set of requests to stay a different EPA rule, aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by power plants. Those requests were filed beginning in late July and have been fully briefed for over a month.

This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.