A win for the EPA against the Koch Brothers at the Supreme Court
by David Atkins
Here's some pleasant news from the Supreme Court, with a wider margin than some had expected:
The Supreme Court on Monday handed President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency a victory in its efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources like power plants, even as it criticized what it called the agency’s overreaching.
“E.P.A. is getting almost everything it wanted in this case,” Justice Antonin Scalia said in summarizing the decision from the bench. “It sought to regulate sources it said were responsible for 86 percent of all the greenhouse gases emitted from stationary sources nationwide. Under our holdings, E.P.A. will be able to regulate sources responsible for 83 percent of those emissions.”
Justice Scalia said the agency was free to do so as long as the sources in question “would need permits based on their emissions of more conventional pollutants.”
It's not a huge win, but it sets but the fact that even Scalia sided with the majority is heartening. EPA Regulations to significantly impact climate emissions seem safe for now on a legal basis even from from the Kochtopus onslaught.
And that's crucial, since EPA regulations are one issue that can be enforced by executive power even in spite of an intransigent Republican congress.
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