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Saturday, February 07, 2009

Environment - "Environmental Views, Past and Present "

The NY Times has a lengthy and balenced article today, authored by John M. Broder, Andrew C. Revkin, Felicity Barringer, and Cornelia Dean, that goes through "environmental and energy policies that encompass land, air, water, wildlife and climate," discussing where Obama may "build on the work of his predecessor, rather than taking it apart."

Tom Goldstein of the SCOTUSBlog had this report yesterday, headed "EPA moves to dismiss Clean Air Act case, reversing Bush Administration policies." A quote:

However, in 2005, the EPA promulgated the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), which created a national emissions cap and trade program to meet mercury reduction requirements and delisted power plants as a source category, applying “plant-specific standards of performance.” The EPA had not, as it conceded in its petition, made the health and environmental impact findings required by the Act at Section 7412(c)(9) to remove a source category, but argued that the new cap and trade program would make the old regulations neither “appropriate” nor “necessary” for power plants. The court of appeals agreed with the petitioners that the delisting rule was contrary to the plain text of the Act and vacated both of the EPA’s rules.

This motion to dismiss presents a fairly radical policy reversal for the EPA, which in its petition for certiorari had argued that the original agency finding on power plant regulations was “seriously flawed” and that mercury emissions would not present a public health hazard with the cap and trade program. The EPA under the Bush administration argued strongly for the market-based emissions allowance trading program as the most cost-effective measure to reduce air pollutants and, further, that Congress intended for the agency to have discretion to make alternative regulations for power plants.

For related links, see this post from How Appealing.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 7, 2009 08:38 AM
Posted to Environment