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Enron Mail |
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court released its long-awaited decision in
Whitman (formerly, Browner) v. American Trucking Associations, the case involving EPA's new rules setting standards for ozone and particulate matter (PM). As you may recall, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit had ruled that EPA exceeded its constitutionally-delegated authority from Congress in crafting the new ozone/PM rules, and also ruled that explicit cost considerations could not be used in standard setting. The Supreme Court considered arguments on both the delegation and the cost question. Industry petitioners had strongly argued that the federal government must consider cost and not just health benefits in setting national air pollution standards. The Supreme Court's ruling held the following: 1) Reversed the Circuit Court's ruling on delegation, holding that the EPA's ozone/PM rules did not represent an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power. 2) Upheld the Circuit Court's ruling on cost considerations, holding that the Clean Air Act "unambiguously bars cost considerations" from the process of setting air-quality standards." 3) Remanded the ozone/PM rules to EPA, holding that EPA's implementation of the rules was unlawful and EPA must develop a reasonable interpretation of the ozone standards. In general, industry is not very happy with the result -- they lost arguments 1) and 2). The remand in 3) will lead to some changes in the way the new standards are applied (and give the Bush Administration the chance to make some cosmetic changes), and may lead to some delays in implementation of the rules, but the bottom line is, the new EPA ozone/PM standards will move forward. Among other things, the new rules set an 8-hour standard for determining attainment status for ozone and PM. We are in the process of analyzing the court's ruling in more detail, and will circulate further analysis shortly. Please contact me with any questions. PLEASE FORWARD TO OTHERS WHO MIGHT FIND THIS INFORMATION USEFUL Thanks, Jeffrey Keeler Director, Environmental Strategies Enron Washington DC office - (202) 466-9157 Cell Phone (203) 464-1541
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