Most SC Justices Seem To Side W. Industry In Clean Air Act Hearing - WP

[hatrack]

What a surprise!

Supreme Court justices took a skeptical view of an Environmental Protection Agency crackdown on air pollution from electric power plants yesterday as the court heard oral arguments in a major case on the authority of the federal government to punish violations of the Clean Air Act.

At issue is a wave of lawsuits begun by the EPA during the last two years of the Clinton administration in which the agency sought to force utilities to equip their refurbished older plants with state-of-the-art pollution control equipment. The EPA said it was enforcing its long-established view of the Clean Air Act's requirements. But companies objected, saying the EPA was unfairly imposing a new and stricter interpretation of ambiguous federal regulations.

At yesterday's argument, most of the justices who spoke up seemed to agree with industry's view. "What I'm concerned about is that companies can get whipsawed," said Justice Antonin Scalia. When Sean H. Donahue, a lawyer for Environmental Defense, a private organization defending the EPA enforcement actions, told the court that the agency's regulations were "clear on their face," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. interjected, "That's an audacious statement."

At issue in the case, Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy , No. 05-848, is how to measure utilities' compliance with the Clean Air Act's "new source review" program, which governs emissions from plants that have been modernized or expanded. Environmental Defense says that about 17,000 facilities are covered by the rules, and it cites studies that show 20,000 premature deaths per year traceable to pollution from coal-fired plants.

EDIT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110101661.html

[necso]

1. "What I'm concerned about is ... companies..."

That would be sufficient to describe his outlook, methinks.