The Supremes yank EPA's chain

Supreme Court Checks GOP Funded EPA

• The Big Government loving GOP allows the EPA to go on decade after decade.  Why?  Because with the threat of EPA oppression Republican political hacks can come to businessmen and extort, I mean, ask for campaign contributions and the party will "intervene" on their behalf.
• This is government sponsored "legal" racketeering.  If you tried to do this you would be in jail. 
• The GOP reserves its passion for those "evil" Gays who want to marry, while the party crams through the corrupt Obamatrade bill and funds the EPA without hardly a word.

(The Hill)  -  The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Obama administration’s landmark air quality rule on Monday, ruling the Environmental Protection Agency did not properly consider the costs of the regulation.

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled that the EPA should have taken into account the costs to utilities and others in the power sector before even deciding whether to set limits for the toxic air pollutants it regulated in 2011.

The case, Michigan v. EPA, centers on the EPA’s first limits on mercury, arsenic and acid gases emitted by coal-fired power plants, known as mercury and air toxics (MATS). Opponents, including the National Federation of Independent Business, say it's among the costliest regulations ever issued.

The EPA estimated its rule, which took effect for some plants in April, would cost $9.6 billion, produce between $37 billion and $90 billion in benefits and prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 asthma cases annually. 

But the agency concluded that its regulatory impact analysis should have “no bearing on” the determination of whether regulations are appropriate, as set forth in the Clean Air Act.  

In the majority ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia concluded that the EPA “unreasonably” interpreted the Clean Air Act when it decided not to consider industry compliance costs and whether regulating the pollutants is “appropriate and necessary.”

While the agency is afforded a certain level of power to interpret the law, the court wrote, “EPA strayed well beyond the bounds of reasonable interpretation in concluding that cost is not a factor relevant to the appropriateness of regulating power plants.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy joined Scalia in overturning the rule, while Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with the EPA.

Writing for the minority, Kagan said the EPA properly considered costs at a later stage in the regulation, something that it has done in other rules and that the courts have allowed.

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