Wednesday, February 26, 2014

U.S. Supreme Court hears Arguments on EPA's use of Clean Air Act over 'stationary sources' of Polution

The federal government’s power to regulate certain greenhouse gas emissions likely hinges on a single Supreme Court justice. 
Monday morning, the high court heard arguments over whether the Environmental Protection Agency can use the Clean Air Act to curb carbon dioxide emissions from some “stationary sources” of pollution, such as existing factories, oil refineries and power plants.
Utilities and industry groups, represented by the Utility Air Regulatory Group, have argued that those measures exceed the EPA’s authority. The Obama Administration, which has turned to the EPA to enforce tighter emissions standards in the wake of partisan deadlock in Congress, has disagreed.
In the court chambers, the decision likely comes down to the body’s sole remaining swing vote: Justice Anthony Kennedy. 
“It looks pretty clearly like Justice Kennedy will be the swing vote,” says attorney Robert Percival, an environmental law professor at the University of Maryland, who attended the hearing.
Based on their questioning, traditionally liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan seemed to side with the EPA, observers say. Meanwhile the court's conservative members – Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia – appeared to come down on the side of the utility group. Justice Clarence Thomas "maintained his customary silence,” according to University of California, Davis, law professor Richard Frank, but has regularly opposed federal environmental regulation.
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