No good deed goes unpunished when it comes to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (“U.S. EPA”) efforts to regulate climate change. Rather, U.S. EPA’s authority to regulate climate change (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions or “GHGs”) is currently being challenged by some States, while other States are simultaneously threatening to sue U.S. EPA for failing to act to address climate change.
Since the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 127 S. Ct. 1438 (2007) holding that U.S. EPA could regulate GHG emissions under the Clean Air Act, various States and industrial groups have challenged U.S. EPA’s subsequent attempts to regulate GHGs. Most recently, on April 19, 2013, the Attorney General of Texas supported by 11 other state attorney generals, filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court claiming that U.S. EPA overreached its authority by regulating GHGs, and requested that the Court overrule its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA on the basis of the “absurd” and detrimental economic consequences of regulating GHGs under the Clean Air Act.
Ironically, on April 17, 2013, 10 different states, the District of Columbia and the City of New York jointly sent U.S. EPA a Clean Air Act Notice of Intent to Sue for U.S. EPA’s failure to promulgate rules on new power plant emissions by the regulatory deadline (the “Notice”). Under the Clean Air Act, U.S. EPA was required to finalize the New Source Performance Standards for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries by April 13, 2013. These are contentious standards that have been the subject of millions of public comments, as they effectively bar the construction of new coal fired power plants without prohibitively expensive control technologies. The States’ intention in filing the Notice is to force U.S. EPA to issue/finalize these rules through court order, or through an agreement with U.S. EPA.
Thus, U.S. EPA now finds itself fighting a two fronted war both trying to defend its action and inaction at the same time. Given these conflicting positions, U.S. EPA would be justified in feeling that it just can’t win when it comes to climate change, and it appears that the more aggressive states may be the ones that start to drive change in this arena.
