Joe Biden\u2019s EPA likely violated federal law with its ozone plan, the Supreme Court held on Thursday, granting a stay requested by Ohio and a coalition of states.<\/b>
\nJoe Biden\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) likely violated federal law with its ozone plan, the Supreme Court held on Thursday, granting a stay requested by Ohio and a coalition of states.
\u201cThe Clean Air Act envisions States and the federal government working together to improve air quality. Under that law\u2019s terms, States bear primary responsibility for developing plans to achieve air-quality goals,\u201d Justice Neil Gorsuch began for the majority. \u201cShould a State fail to prepare a legally compliant plan, however, the federal government may sometimes step in and assume that authority for itself.\u201d
\u201cHere, the federal government announced its intention to reject over 20 States\u2019 plans for controlling ozone pollution,\u201d Gorsuch continued in the 5-4 decision. \u201cIn their place, the government sought to impose a single, uniform federal plan [called a FIP]. This litigation concerns whether, in adopting that plan, the federal government complied with the terms of the Act.\u201d
\u201cBecause air currents can carry pollution across state borders, emissions in upwind States sometimes affect air quality in downwind States. To address that externality problem, under the Act\u2019s Good Neighbor Provision,\u201d he explained, \u201cstate plans must prohibit emissions in amounts which will . . . contribute significantly to nonattainment in, or interfere with maintenance by, any other State of the relevant air-quality standard.\u201d
\u201cBecause the States bear primary responsibility for developing compliance plans, EPA has no authority to question the wisdom of a State\u2019s choices of emission limitations,\u201d the majority held, quoting precedent. \u201cSo long as a SIP [state plan] satisfies the applicable requirements of the Act, including the Good Neighbor Provision, EPA shall approve it within 18 months of its submission.\u201d
\u201cRather than continue to encourage flexibility and different state approaches, EPA now apparently took the view that effective policy solutions to the problem of interstate ozone transport demanded that kind of uniform framework and nationwide consistency,\u201d the majority observed.
The court then considered the impact on both sides of issuing a stay to block EPA\u2019s plan while this lawsuit continues.
Gorsuch wrote:
\u201cThe States and the private applicants also stress that complying with the FIP during the pendency of this litigation would require them to incur hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars,\u201d he added. \u201cThose costs, the applicants note, are nonrecoverable.\u201d
The majority then delved into the relevant law \u2013 called the Administrative Procedure Act that Ohio argued EPA violated with its plan. One way an agency violates the APA is if the agency\u2019s action is arbitrary or capricious.
\u201cAn agency action qualifies as arbitrary or capricious if it is not reasonable and reasonably explained,\u201d the court began, quoting a line of longstanding precedents. A court also \u201cmust ensure, among other things, that the agency has offered a satisfactory explanation for its action, including a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made,\u201d and cannot ignore \u201can important aspect of the problem.\u201d
\u201cWe agree with the applicants that EPA\u2019s final FIP likely runs afoul of these long-settled standards,\u201d the majority ruled. \u201cThe problem stems from the way EPA chose to determine which emissions contributed significantly to downwind States\u2019 difficulty meeting national ozone standards.\u201d
\u201cAlthough commenters posed this concern to EPA during the notice and comment period, EPA offered no reasoned response,\u201d the court determined, and continued:
\u201cWith the government\u2019s theories unavailing, the dissent advances others of its own,\u201d the majority wrote, rebutting the points raised in the case\u2019s dissenting opinion. \u201cIt begins by suggesting that the problem the applicants raise was not important enough to warrant a reasoned reply from the agency because the methodology EPA employed in its FIP appears not to depend on the number of covered States.\u201d
\u201cThe trouble is, if the government had arguments along these lines, it did not make them,\u201d the majority reasoned in rejecting that point. \u201cIt did not despite its ample resources and voluminous briefing.\u201d
\u201cIf anything, we see one reason for caution after another,\u201d Gorsuch adds, discussing five deficiencies with the dissenting justices\u2019 arguments. \u201cWith so many reasons for caution, we think sticking to our normal course of declining to consider forfeited arguments the right course here.\u201d
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the dissent, joined by Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The four consolidated applications were decided under the name Ohio v. EPA, 23A49 in the Supreme Court of the United States.<\/p>\n