{"id":9638,"date":"2015-02-13T14:55:14","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T19:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/?p=9638"},"modified":"2015-02-13T14:55:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T19:55:14","slug":"misguided-legal-attacks-on-clean-power-plan-seek-to-undermine-clean-air-act-public-participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2015\/02\/13\/misguided-legal-attacks-on-clean-power-plan-seek-to-undermine-clean-air-act-public-participation\/","title":{"rendered":"Misguided Legal Attacks on Clean Power Plan Seek to Undermine Clean Air Act, Public Participation"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_7548\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7548\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2014\/06\/Gavel_iStock000003633182Medium1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7548\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2014\/06\/Gavel_iStock000003633182Medium1-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Source: iStock \" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2014\/06\/Gavel_iStock000003633182Medium1-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2014\/06\/Gavel_iStock000003633182Medium1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2014\/06\/Gavel_iStock000003633182Medium1.jpg 1698w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7548\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: iStock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will finalize rules establishing the nation\u2019s first limits on carbon pollution from the power sector \u2013 the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States \u2013 by mid-summer of this year.<\/p>\n<p>This timetable will allow EPA to carefully consider and respond to the approximately four million public comments it has received on almost every aspect of these vital and common-sense standards, which were proposed in draft form last summer as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edf.org\/climate\/a-new-federal-clean-power-plan\">Clean Power Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, several states and a major coal producer have attempted to short-circuit this process by filing highly unusual legal challenges to these proposed standards. The challenges were filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in two related cases, <em>Murray Energy Corporation v. EPA<\/em> (Nos. 14-1112 &amp; 14-1151) and <em>West Virginia v. EPA <\/em>(No. 14-1146).<\/p>\n<p>EDF \u2014 along with other environmental groups, a coalition of states, and a major power company \u2014\u00a0participated in these suits in support of EPA, and briefs were filed in both cases this week. (Read <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2015\/02\/EDF-brief-for-Murray-Energy-v.-EPA2.pdf\">our brief in <em>Murray Energy<\/em> here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2015\/02\/EDF-brief-for-West-Virginia-v.-EPA.pdf\">our brief in <em>West Virginia<\/em> here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>These lawsuits are untimely, legally unfounded, and seek to undermine a critically important democratic process.<\/p>\n<p>One of the bedrock principles of administrative law is that standards developed by federal agencies go through a procedure whereby draft standards are published, the public has an opportunity to comment, and agencies review and respond to those comments in the final standards \u2014 all <em>before<\/em> legal challenges to those rules can be filed.<\/p>\n<p>This process ensures that the public has a meaningful chance to weigh in on agency actions. It also helps agencies themselves ensure their decisions are well-informed and firmly grounded in law and science. In fact, proposed rules often undergo substantial changes as a result of the comment process. The rule against judicial review of proposed rules respects the importance of this process, and keeps courts and agencies from wasting valuable time and judicial resources on litigation over rules that may change as a result of public comments.<\/p>\n<p>Disregarding this basic principle, the petitioners in these two cases argue that the proposed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edf.org\/climate\/a-new-federal-clean-power-plan\">Clean Power Plan<\/a> is unlawful \u2013 and demand that the court set the proposed rule aside before EPA has even finished its review of comments, much less issued a final rule.<\/p>\n<p>But this fundamental jurisdictional obstacle is only the start of the problems with the petitioners\u2019 case, which rests on an implausible reading of the Clean Air Act that would undermine the very health protections Congress sought to establish there.<\/p>\n<p>EPA\u2019s Clean Power Plan is authorized by section 111(d) of the Act, which requires EPA to administer a process by which states submit plans to regulate certain pollutants from existing sources of harmful air pollution. When enacted in 1970, section 111(d) clearly required that states establish such standards for any pollutant <em>except<\/em> those regulated under section 108 of the Clean Air Act (which addresses national air quality standards) and section 112 (which applies to acutely toxic \u201chazardous air pollutants\u201d or HAPs).<\/p>\n<p>For more than forty years, section 111(d) has been understood to serve a vital \u201cgap-filling\u201d role in the Clean Air Act \u2013 ensuring the protection of human health and welfare from harmful air pollution from existing sources, where that pollution is not adequately regulated under other provisions of the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n<p>Ignoring that sensible and long-standing framework, the petitioners in these cases have advanced an unusual theory &#8212; that EPA is barred from regulating carbon pollution <em>at all<\/em> under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act because the Agency is already regulating <em>different <\/em>pollutants from the power sector (mercury and other air toxics) under section 112 of the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n<p>As EPA explained in <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2015\/02\/EPA-brief-in-West-Virginia-v.-EPA.pdf\">its brief in <em>West Virginia<\/em><\/a>, this theory amounts to a \u201cpick your poison\u201d approach to the Clean Air Act \u2013 arbitrarily limiting EPA to regulating <em>either <\/em>HAPs like mercury (under section 112) or non-HAPs like carbon pollution (under section 111(d)) for any given source, but not both.<\/p>\n<p>The petitioners\u2019 interpretation not only defies logic and the basic structure of our nation\u2019s clean air laws, it also stands in sharp contrast to arguments that industry <em>itself<\/em> made to the Supreme Court in the case of <em>American Electric Power v. Connecticut <\/em>(2011).<\/p>\n<p>There<em>,<\/em> the Court specifically found that section 111(d) \u201cspeaks directly\u201d to the problem of carbon pollution from the power sector, and held that EPA\u2019s authority to regulate carbon pollution under section 111(d) displaces federal common law.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/2010-2019\/2010\/2010_10_174\">oral argument in <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/2010-2019\/2010\/2010_10_174\">American Electric Power<\/a>, <\/em>attorneys for some of the country\u2019s largest power companies told the Court in no uncertain terms that EPA <em>does <\/em>have authority to regulate carbon dioxide under section 111(d):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWe believe that the EPA can consider, as it&#8217;s undertaking to do, regulating existing nonmodified sources under section 111 of the Clean Air Act, and that&#8217;s the process that&#8217;s engaged in now\u2026 Obviously, at the close of that process there could be APA challenges on a variety of grounds, but we <strong>do believe that they have the authority to consider standards under section 111<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Four years later, petitioners now claim that EPA is <em>required <\/em>to adopt their interpretation as a result of changes made to the text of section 111(d) as part of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.<\/p>\n<p>In 1990, in an effort to update a cross-reference to the hazardous air pollution program under section 112, the Senate and House each passed technical amendments making minor changes to the same language in section 111(d). Congress then enacted, and the President signed into law, <em>both<\/em> amendments to the statute.<\/p>\n<p>Even petitioners do not contest that the language of the Senate Amendment clearly preserves EPA\u2019s long-standing authority to regulate carbon pollution under section 111(d) (as well as other pollutants not regulated under sections 108 or 112). However, petitioners have seized on the House amendment, which amended section 111(d) to require that EPA regulate \u201cany pollutant\u201d which is not \u201cemitted from a source category which is regulated under [section 112].\u201d This language, they claim, prevents EPA from regulating carbon dioxide from existing power plants \u2014because power plants are subject to emission standards for mercury, acid gases, and other HAPs under section 112.<\/p>\n<p>This argument finds no support in the Act\u2019s text, structure, or legislative history.<\/p>\n<p>First, the petitioners\u2019 theory would radically change the structure of the Clean Air Act in a way that Congress could never have intended. Under the Petitioners\u2019 theory, section 111(d) would not apply to any pollutant, no matter how harmful, that is emitted by the dozens of industrial source types regulated under section 112 of the Clean Air Act. Significant categories of harmful pollution, not limited to carbon dioxide, would be placed beyond the scope of regulation under the Clean Air Act. In all of the extensive debate, committee reports, and other legislative history that led up to the enactment of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, there is not a shred of evidence that Congress intended to create loopholes in section 111(d) as the petitioners claim.<\/p>\n<p>Second, the 1990 amendments include a provision stating that standards under section 112 must not be \u201cinterpreted, construed or applied to diminish or replace\u201d more stringent requirements under section 111 \u2013 a strong indication that Congress intended for section 112 to work seamlessly with, not displace, section 111(d).<\/p>\n<p>Third, the petitioners\u2019 theory is completely at odds with the purpose of the 1990 Amendments, which strengthened the Act in numerous ways in order to ensure that harmful air pollution was being effectively addressed.<\/p>\n<p>Petitioners also urge the court to disregard what Congress <em>actually <\/em>did by ignoring the Senate amendment, which even petitioners agree clearly preserves EPA\u2019s authority to regulate carbon pollution under section 111(d). But the Senate amendment was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the President. As the law of the land, the Senate Amendment cannot be cast aside.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the petitioners emphasize a strained interpretation of the House Amendment that is not only unreasonable on its face and inconsistent with the Supreme Court\u2019s opinion in <em>AEP<\/em>, as described above, but is contrary to all of the actions taken by <em>every<\/em> administration in the twenty-five years since the 1990 amendments were enacted.<\/p>\n<p>As documented in a compelling <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/2015\/02\/Policy-Integrity-brief.pdf\">brief filed by NYU\u2019s Institute for Policy Integrity<\/a>, EPA has adopted the view that section 111(d) applies to any pollutant not regulated under section 112 or section 108 in multiple rulemakings since 1990 \u2014 not just in the Obama Administration, but also the George W. Bush Administration, the Clinton Administration, and the Administration of George H.W. Bush, who actually signed the 1990 amendments. This long record shows that the House amendment is most reasonably interpreted to preserve the historic \u201cgap-filling\u201d role of section 111(d).<\/p>\n<p>It is regrettable that petitioners have resorted to premature litigation rather than allow the administrative process to run its course.<\/p>\n<p>EPA undoubtedly possesses the authority to limit carbon pollution from existing power plants under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. That&#8217;s good news for families and communities that are afflicted by mercury and carbon pollution from fossil fuel power plants &#8212; the nation&#8217;s single largest source of both health-harming contaminants. Congress did not intend for our children to have to &#8220;pick their poisons,&#8221; but instead created a seamless framework \u2013 which Republican and Democratic administrations alike have long carried out \u2014 to safeguard our children&#8217;s health from all harmful air pollution.<\/p>\n<p><em>Cecilia Segal, a legal intern at EDF, helped to prepare this post. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will finalize rules establishing the nation\u2019s first limits on carbon pollution from the power sector \u2013 the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States \u2013 by mid-summer of this year. This timetable will allow EPA to carefully consider and respond to the approximately four million public comments &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4017,4025,4024,202,44],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clean-air-act","category-carbon-pollution-standards","category-epa-litgation","category-greenhouse-gas-emissions","category-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Misguided Legal Attacks on Clean Power Plan Seek to Undermine Clean Air Act, Public Participation - Climate 411<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2015\/02\/13\/misguided-legal-attacks-on-clean-power-plan-seek-to-undermine-clean-air-act-public-participation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Misguided Legal Attacks on Clean Power Plan Seek to Undermine Clean Air Act, Public Participation - Climate 411\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will finalize rules establishing the nation\u2019s first limits on carbon pollution from the power sector \u2013 the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States \u2013 by mid-summer of this year. 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