WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not be able to enforce a key rule designed to limit air pollution in nearly a dozen states, according to a Supreme Court decision Thursday, while various lawsuits are pending across the country.
The EPA’s Good Neighbor rule is designed to limit smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities that pollute downwind areas with smog-causing air pollution.
Three energy-producing states – Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia – joined the steel industry and other groups in challenging the rule, calling it costly and ineffective.
The Supreme Court has put the rule on hold while legal challenges continue, the latest blow from the conservative-led court to the federal regulations.
The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has increasingly confined the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. Justices have confined the EPA’s authority to combat air and water pollution, including a landmark 2022 ruling that confined the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming.
The court is also considering overturning its 40-year-old Chevron decision, which laid the foundation for upholding a wide range of public health, worker safety and consumer protection regulations.
A look at the good neighbor rule and the impact of the court decision.
What is the rule of “good neighbors”?
The EPA created the rule to protect downwind states that experience unwanted air pollution from other states. In addition to the potential health impacts of air pollution from other states, many states also have their own federal deadlines to ensure tidy air.
States including Wisconsin, New York and Connecticut said they are struggling to meet federal standards and reduce health-harming ozone levels because of pollution from out-of-state power plants, cement kilns and natural gas pipelines that flow across their borders.
Ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog, is formed when industrial pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, refineries and other sources react chemically in the presence of sunlight. High ozone levels can cause respiratory problems such as asthma and chronic bronchitis. People with weakened immune systems, the elderly and children who play outdoors are particularly at risk.
Judith Vale, New York State’s deputy attorney general, told the court that in some states, up to 65 percent of smog pollution comes from outside their borders.
States that contribute to ground-level ozone formation must submit plans to ensure that coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities do not contribute significantly to air pollution in other states. In cases where a state has not submitted a “good neighbor” plan – or if the EPA rejects a state plan – a federal plan is intended to ensure that downwind states are protected.
What happens next with the rule?
With its decision, the Supreme Court blocks the EPA’s enforcement of the rule and sends the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is reviewing a lawsuit against the rule filed by 11 predominantly Republican states.
An EPA spokesman said the agency believes the plan is firmly rooted in its authority under the Clean Air Act and looks forward to defending “the merits of this vital public health protection” before the appeals court.
Spokesman Timothy Carroll said the Supreme Court ruling would “postpone the benefits the Good Neighbor Plan is already delivering in many states and communities.”
While the plan is on hold, “Americans will continue to be exposed to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone, which will have costly public health impacts that can be particularly harmful to children and the elderly,” Carroll said. Ozone disproportionately affects people of color, low-income families and other vulnerable populations, he said.
Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said he was pleased that the Supreme Court “recognized the immediate harm this reckless rule is causing to industry and consumers. No agency may act outside the clear boundaries of the law, and today the Supreme Court once again reminded EPA of that fact.”
Nolan said that if the regulation is suspended, the mining industry expects to present its arguments in court that the EPA rule “is unlawful in its overreach and must be repealed to protect American workers, energy independence, the power grid and the consumers it serves.”
Only a few states participate
The EPA rule was intended to provide a national solution to the ozone pollution problem, but critics said it was based on the assumption that all 23 states affected by the rule would participate. In fact, only about half of those states participated earlier this year.
A lawyer for industry groups challenging the rule said it imposes significant and immediate costs that could affect the reliability of the power grid. With fewer states participating, the rule may result in only a petite reduction in air pollution, and there is no guarantee the final rule will stand, industry lawyer Catherine Stetson said in oral arguments before the Supreme Court earlier this year.
The EPA has said that emissions from power plants will fall by 18 percent by 2023 in the 10 states where it is authorized to enforce its rule passed last year. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In California, limits on emissions from industrial sources other than power plants are set to take effect in 2026.
The rule has been put on hold in dozens more states due to separate legal challenges: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
Administrative oversight or life-saving protection?
Critics, including Republicans and business associations, call the Good Neighbor Rule an example of government overreach.
The EPA rule and other Biden administration regulations “aim to quickly wean the U.S. energy sector off fossil fuels by dramatically increasing operating costs … and forcing the premature retirement of power plants,” Republican lawmakers said in a brief filed with the Supreme Court.
Supporters disputed this, calling the “good neighbor” rule critical to combating interstate air pollution and ensuring that all Americans have access to tidy air.
“Today’s move by the far-right Supreme Court justices to suspend common-sense air quality regulations shows how radical this court has become,” said Charles Harper of the environmental group Evergreen Action.
“The court is intervening in a rule that would prevent 1,300 Americans from dying prematurely each year from air pollution that extends beyond state lines. We know that low-income and disadvantaged communities with poor air quality will bear the brunt of this delay,” Harper said.
Roger Reynolds, legal director for the environmental group Save the Sound, said the decision hampers the EPA’s attempt to protect states like Connecticut and New York that suffer from ozone pollution caused by the Midwest.
“We cannot achieve healthy air quality for our citizens without addressing downwind pollution in addition to local sources,” Reynolds said.
The rule applies primarily to states in the South and Midwest that contribute to East Coast air pollution. Some states, such as Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin, both contribute to downwind air pollution and are affected by other states.
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Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut contributed to this article.
