Supreme Court blocks enforcement of EPA’s ‘good neighbor’ rule on downwind pollution
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency will be unable to enforce a key rule limiting air pollution in nearly a dozen states while separate legal challenges continue across the country, under a Supreme Court decision Thursday.
The EPAs ‘good neighbor’ rule is intended to limit stack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution.
Three energy-producing states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — challenged the rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it expensive and ineffective. A dozen other states have suspended the rule because of the legal challenges.
The Supreme Court has suspended the rule While legal challenges continue, this is the conservative-led court’s latest blow to federal regulations.
The Supreme Court, with a conservative majority of 6-3, has increasingly curbed the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. The justices have limited the EPA’s authority to combat air and water pollution, including: landmark ruling 2022 that limited the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming. The court also struck down a vaccine mandate and blocked Democratic President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program.
The court is also considering whether this is allowed reverse Chevron’s 40-year-old decisionwhich forms the basis for enforcing a wide range of regulations in the areas of public health, workplace safety and consumer protection.
A look at the good neighbor rule and the implications of the court decision.
The EPA adopted the rule as a way to protect Leeward states that receive unwanted air pollution from other states. In addition to the potential health impacts of out-of-state pollution, many states face their own federal deadlines to ensure clean air.
States including Wisconsin, New York and Connecticut said they are struggling to meet federal standards and reduce harmful ozone levels because of pollution from out-of-state power plants, cement kilns and natural gas pipelines that flow across their borders.
Judith Vale, New York’s deputy attorney general, told the court that in some states as much as 65% of smog pollution comes from outside their borders.
States that contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog, must submit plans that ensure coal-fired power plants and other industrial sites do not contribute significantly to air pollution in other states. In cases where a state has not submitted a “good neighbor plan” – or where the EPA disapproves a state plan – a federal plan is supposed to ensure that the Downwind states are protected.
The EPA rule was intended to provide a national solution to the problem of ozone pollution, but challengers said it relied on the assumption that all 23 states to which the rule applied would participate. In fact, only about half that number of states were participating as of early this year.
An attorney for industry groups challenging the rule said it would impose significant and immediate costs that could affect the reliability of the electric grid. If fewer states join in, the rule could result in only a small reduction in air pollution, without any guarantee that the final rule will be enforced, says industry attorney Catherine Stetson.
The EPA has said that power plant emissions will fall by 18% by 2023 in the 10 states where it has been allowed to enforce its rule. completed last year. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In California, limits on emissions from industrial sources other than power plants should take effect in 2026.
The rule has been suspended in another 10 states due to separate legal issues. The states are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
Critics, including Republicans and business groups, call the good neighbor rule an example of government overreach.
“The EPA rule “acts far beyond the powers delegated” under the Clean Air Act and proposes to reform the energy sector in affected states toward the agency’s preferred goals,” Republican lawmakers said in a friend-of- the court letter.
The rule and other regulations from the Biden administration “are designed to hastily wean the U.S. energy sector off fossil fuels by sharply increasing operating costs for operators of fossil fuel power plants, causing the plants to retire early,” the letter said of Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Roger Wicker of Mississippi claimed. Rodgers is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, while Capito and Wicker are senior members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Advocates disputed that, calling the “good neighbor” rule critical to addressing interstate air pollution and ensuring all Americans have access to clean air.
“These limits are critical components of federal and state efforts under the Clean Air Act to protect public health, especially for vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly and people with pre-existing health conditions,” said Prof. Christophe Courchesne, director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Advocacy Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
Ground-level ozone, which is created when industrial pollutants chemically react in the presence of sunlight, can cause respiratory problems, including asthma and chronic bronchitis. People with weakened immune systems, the elderly and children who play outside are particularly vulnerable.
The rule mainly applies to states in the South and Midwest that contribute to air pollution along the East Coast. Some states, such as Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin, both contribute to downwind pollution and receive it from other states.