Supreme Court blocks EPA’s ‘good neighbor’ rule to combat air pollution

Washington — The Supreme Court Thursday have agreed to block an environmental rule aimed at reducing air pollution and combating harmful smog that moves from some states to others while legal proceedings continue.

In a 5-4 decision, the court granted a request from Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as energy companies and industry groups, to suspend the rule. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion. Joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, Gorsuch said the Environmental Protection Agency had failed to reasonably explain its federal implementation plan to control ozone pollution.

The majority of justices said Republican-led states and the energy industry are likely to prevail in their legal challenge to the agency’s “good neighbor” plan. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett, dissenting, said the court’s decision to block enforcement of the rule is based on an “underdeveloped theory” that is unlikely to succeed.

The court’s order, she said, “leaves large swaths of upwind states free to continue contributing significantly to the ozone problems of their downwind neighbors over the next several years.” Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Barrett in her dissent.

The dispute involved the Clean Air Act’s good neighbor provision, which aims to address interstate pollution problems. The law requires the EPA to set federal standards for the amount of certain pollutants that can be safely present in the air. When the agency sets air quality standards, states must submit implementation plans to meet them.

Ohio v. EPA

Under the good neighbor provision, some states’ plans must contain measures to reduce ozone pollution, helping states like New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that are struggling to meet environmental standards. air quality within federal deadlines.

Federal law gives EPA the authority to approve a state’s plan only if it meets all of the requirements of the Clean Air Act. If EPA determines that a proposal doesn’t do enough to reduce air pollution, it can reject it and implement a federal plan.

In February 2023, the EPA determined that 23 “upwind” states had not submitted adequate plans to comply with air quality standards that the agency strengthened in 2015. The agency announced the federal good neighbor plan a month later, establishing an emissions control program for electricity. factories, refineries and other large industrial sources in these 23 states, which the EPA says contribute significantly to ozone pollution in other downwind states.

Several of these states have challenged EPA’s disapproval of their implementation plans, and federal appeals courts have temporarily stayed their disapproval for 12 of them while legal proceedings continue. The EPA also suspended federal plan requirements for these dozen states: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

In the other 11 states covered by the Good Neighbor Plan, the requirements remain in effect.

In February, the EPA announced that power plant emissions fell 18% in 2023 in the ten states that implemented the Good Neighbor Plan: Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Requirements for industrial sources other than power plants for the eleventh state, California, are expected to take effect in 2026.

The Supreme Court case arose from a challenge to the good neighbor rule by Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as energy companies and industry groups.

The three states filed petitions with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia seeking to halt implementation of the federal plan, but in September a divided three-judge panel of the Columbia Circuit rejected their petitions. They sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court in October, and the justices heard arguments in February.

The EPA has warned that ozone pollution can cause respiratory problems and long-term exposure can lead to asthma. Those most at risk are children whose lungs are still developing and the elderly.

With a 6-3 conservative majority, the high court has been skeptical of federal regulatory power, particularly when it comes to environmental rules. The Supreme Court has ruled against the EPA in recent years in two cases involving the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

In its most recent decision, in May 2023, a divided court restricted the EPA’s authority to regulate certain wetlands under the 1972 Act. A year earlier, in June 2022, the Supreme Court had ruled on ideological lines limit the power of the EPA set rules for greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

The Supreme Court is also weigh an effort to overturn its 40-year-old Chevron decision, which requires courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous laws. Legal doctrine has give agencies the ability to issue rules regulating a multitude of areas that touch American life, including health care and the workplace.