This should be a no-brainer for the Supremes. Only Congress is Constitutionally authorized to change the law. EPA acted illegally by unilaterally changing the emissions threshold for greenhouse gases.
This should be a no-brainer for the Supremes. Only Congress is Constitutionally authorized to change the law. EPA acted illegally by unilaterally changing the emissions threshold for greenhouse gases.
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. Under the CAAA a major (prevention of significant deterioration-PSD) source is 250 tons/year of a criteria pollutant and a Title V source is 100 tons/year. Under the Tailoring Rule, the threshold reporting quantity for GHG is 25,000 tpy CO2 equivalent. The EPA has threatened to go eventually to the 100/250 tpy level for GHG. This would put tens of thousands of buildings and businesses in the same reporting/permitting class as a coal fired utility. If you are lucky, it takes a little over a year and $50k-$100k to get a “small source” PSD permit. In Virginia the application fee for a PSD permit is $30k and that doesn’t count the required modeling. I have to do best available control technology (BACT) demonstrations for GHG in air permit applications for renewable energy projects now, I can’t imagine what would happen if my landfill gas to electricity projects all became PSD sources. The unwieldy and idiotic environmental permitting system would stop the US in its tracks if GHG’s were permitted at the same level as NOx.
It should really be Congress’s role at times like this to legislate the limits, however broad or narrow, for the benefit of the public and of the agency as well. Get ahead of it rather than leave it to the courts.
“…even to Chief Justice Roberts…” Going to defend the Chief Justice on DemBamaCare. Courts are supposed to show a lot of deference to the legislature. Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling was that the fee/penalty/tax was designed and implemented more in line with tax law than criminal or civil penalty law. He never called it a good idea, nor expressed support for DemBamaCare broadly because those were not the issues at hand. He also said (I have to paraphrase) that the Court does not exist to protect voters from the results of their own choices. Well done, Chief Justice. I just wish the voters had been listening better when they went to the polls in 2012.
Senator Baucus is going to have a hard time next year in the election campaign when he has to explain how his own law became a train wreck but that’s a different discussion.
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This isn’t the first time they have done this sort of thing. EPA is constantly altering the rules based on their interpretation of some federal law that is far and wide beyond the intent of Congress because like all bureaucracies – the larger it became the more powerful it became – and when bureaucracies are created they become infested with people with their own agendas.
When Roosevelt created all those new and powerful agencies during the Depression they quickly became infiltrated with communists, communist spies and fellow travelers that ended up being responsible for Europe and China falling under communist rule.
The EPA is infested with environmental activists who believe their agenda must be the law of the land and when an agency becomes that big and intrusive in so many aspects of American life it is impossible to monitor it properly There is only one answer. Dismantle the EPA.
The Court could easily be tempted to hand this one back to Congress. I like it. But the Court could just as easily say the magic words “granted broad authority” and the EPA’s fiefdom is secured.