In the News

Climate change impacts – from more extreme droughts and floods to effects like crop losses and sea-level rise – are costing Americans $37 per tonne of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, according to an updated estimate by the U.S. government. The Obama administration’s cost-of-carbon figure has been put to use in a variety of ways, including to justify energy efficiency rules put out by the Department of Energy, said Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law. It is also expected to play into regulations being crafted to govern the building of new power plants in the United States, he said.

Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument on a case concerning the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. At first glance, this case deals with only a narrow technical legal issue. Does the term “any air pollutant” under one of the Clean Air Act’s many programs mean any air pollutant regulated by the Clean Air Act, as maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and by the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding this interpretation? Or does it mean only a subcategory of such pollutants, as maintained by the regulation’s challengers?

Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, discusses the arguments and potential outcomes in the Supreme Court case on the ability of EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. He also explains its significance in the context of the broader discussion on EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Monday morning, the high court heard arguments over whether the Environmental Protection Agency can use the Clean Air Act to curb carbon dioxide emissions from some “stationary sources” of pollution, such as existing factories, oil refineries and power plants. After the arguments, environmental groups predicted the court will uphold the EPA’s actions under the Clean Air Act. “I think it’s much more likely that when they try to get out an opinion, they’ll have to hold up what EPA did,” says David Doniger, an attorney for the National Resources Defense Council. New York University law professor Richard Revesz offered a similar opinion. “The regulations will be upheld,” he says. “Congress designed a program specifically for this [with the Clean Air Act]. Once they struggle with all the back and forth, a majority of them [the justices] will come to see that.”

President Obama’s use of executive power to tackle global warming goes on trial Monday when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a challenge from industry and a dozen states to an EPA effort to curb industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. The program at the heart of the case — prevention of significant deterioration, or PSD — requires facilities to obtain permits that mandate the use of “best available” control technology to limit emissions. EPA supporters say the agency has long said regulating new pollutants under other parts of the Clean Air Act requires inclusion in the PSD program. “For 30 years, EPA has had a consistent approach to this program,” said Richard Revesz, director of the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

President Barack Obama’s four appointees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit are well-regarded attorneys with extensive careers in U.S. Supreme Court appeals and civil rights cases, but their legal backgrounds offer minimal insight into their approach to environmental law. Legal observers will be closely watching the four new additions—Judges Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard, Sri Srinivasan and Robert Wilkins—over the coming months as they hear oral arguments and issue decisions in air, mining and other environmental cases. On the administrative area or environmental area, we don’t see a lot of past work that these guys have done,” Michael Livermore, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and senior adviser at the Institute for Policy Integrity, told Bloomberg BNA.

The Institute for Public Integrity, based at New York University, filed a friend-of-the-court, or amicus, brief this morning, saying EPA’s treatment of carbon dioxide as a pollutant does not violate the Clean Air Act. The group asserted that the EPA was right to give carbon dioxide equal weight to other pollutants in the agency’s first greenhouse gas regulations, rules that are being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court by a coalition of utilities, manufacturers and business groups. The last 30 years of regulation and statutory amendments show that Congress intended the agency to manage all regulated pollutants, not just ones that affect local air quality, states the brief. “The truth of the matter is that EPA’s position has been consistent for 30 years,” said Richard Revesz, faculty director at Policy Integrity.

Two of the most important health standards ever adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce harmful air pollution from power plants had their day in court last week. Actually two courts: the Supreme Court heard arguments on EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a three-judge panel heard challenges from industry, conservative states and some environmental groups to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS) for coal- and oil-burning power plants. Professor Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, “thought that the argument went very well for the government, for EPA” during the CSAPR hearing in the Supreme Court. Getting to the heart of the matter, he observed that “the government was able to engage the justices on its core point, which is that costs can be taken into account in setting the pollution control burden between upwind and downwind states, and that’s the core of the case.”

In what topsy-turvy world would we find large energy companies like the Ohio Valley Coal Corporation suing in the Supreme Court to ask for more stringent, complicated, and expensive environmental regulations? Our world, it turns out. Yesterday, several large energy companies argued against EPA’s use of a flexible, market-based approach to cutting air pollution that crosses state lines. Their argument prevailed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where it derailed an EPA regulation that provides enormous benefits (estimated at $120 and $280 billion per year at the time the rule was proposed, including tens of thousands of lives saved and over a million missed days of work or school avoided per year) with a cost of under $1 billion per year.

After the Supreme Court’s December 10th arguments on the EPA’s cross-state air pollution rule, what precedent could the court set with its decision? During this segment of OnPoint, Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, gives his impressions of the arguments and justices’ reactions. He also talks about the impact the court’s decision could have on the Obama administration’s climate and energy agenda.