l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 The Environmental Protection Agency has been waging a regulatory war on
Texas—and losing in the federal courts. On Tuesday the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down another misguided EPA rule.
Enacted in August 2011, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule was supposed to
reduce air pollution emitted in one state and carried downwind to another.
Under the Clean Air Act, if pollution from the upwind state is causing the
downwind neighbor to fail federal air quality tests, then the EPA can order
the upwind state to reduce the emissions causing the problem.
But even such expansive authority from Congress is never enough for the
Obama EPA. So the agency decided to use the rule-making as a pretext to
force down emissions even further—illegally, as it turns out.
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Assistant editorial page editor James Freeman on an appellate court ruling
vacating the EPA's cross-state pollution rule. Photos: Getty Images
In Tuesday's decision, two of the three judges on the appellate panel found
that under the rule "upwind States may be required to reduce emissions by
more than their own significant contributions to a downwind State's
nonattainment. EPA has used the good neighbor provision to impose massive
emissions reduction requirements on upwind States without regard to the
limits imposed by the statutory text."
The court found that the feds also broke the law by dictating the measures
to be used to reduce emissions instead of allowing states to design their
own plans, as the statute demands. "Congress did not authorize EPA to simply
adopt limits on emissions as EPA deemed reasonable," wrote Judge Brett
Kavanaugh.
The flawed rule would have hit coal-fired electric plants in particular, and
especially those based in Texas. EPA's illegal micro-managing of state air-
quality plans was so specific that immediately after the rule-making it was
clear that coal-powered energy production at Texas-based plants operated by
Luminant, a big utility, would have to be cut. Tuesday's ruling means
Luminant will be able to keep 1,300 megawatts of power online in Texas,
which needs more electricity because unlike other parts of the U.S. in the
Obama era it is growing.
Luminant had announced it would need to lay off roughly 500 workers in
mining and electricity production. Now the utility says those jobs have been
spared, thanks to the court's intervention.
According to a scoreboard by the American Action Forum, Tuesday's rebuke
from the D.C. Circuit marks the 15th time that a federal court has struck
down an Obama regulation, and the sixth smack-down for the Obama EPA. This
tally counts legally flawed rules as well as misguided EPA disapprovals of
actions by particular states.
As for this latter category, last week the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
saved Texas from an arbitrary and capricious EPA rejection of its permitting
process for utilities and industrial plants. In that case the court found
that "the EPA based its disapproval on demands for language and program
features of the EPA's choosing, without basis in the Clean Air Act or its
implementing regulations."
See a pattern here? Mitt Romney and House Republicans are making the case
that Obama regulators have been punishing U.S. business in violation of the
law and beyond what Congress intended. Tuesday's ruling proves their point
and underscores how much more damaging the EPA could be without re-election
restraint in a second Obama term.
The court's decision states it plainly: "Absent a claim of constitutional
authority (and there is none here), executive agencies may exercise only the
authority conferred by statute, and agencies may not transgress statutory
limits on that authority."
The message is that regulators must follow the laws of the United States.
Why do federal judges constantly have to remind EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson of this basic principle? | l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 2 "Why do federal judges constantly have to remind EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson of this basic principle?'
Because Lisa Jackson gets her orders from Barack Obama and he thinks he's
above the law. So it's going to take a turn-over in the White House to
eliminate these attacks from the EPA. |
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