Supreme Court to Decide EPA Authority to Weigh Costs of Regs
Updated: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency may weigh costs and benefits when deciding how power plants should retrofit water intake systems to protect fish.
The cert petitions by Entergy Corp. and other utilities ask the court to reverse a federal appeals court ruling that limited the EPA’s ability to weigh the costs of retrofitting against the environmental benefits, Dow Jones reports. The ruling also restricted the substitution of environmental restoration efforts for retrofitting to restore fish population, the story says.
The cert petition by Entergy (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) claims the ruling by the New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is costly and wrong. “The holding below creates a regime under which the nation’s existing electric supply may be forced to shut down during lengthy retrofits–costing hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars for nuclear facilities—with no assurance that EPA will not force another round of retrofits if the agency concludes it would guaranty the survival of a single additional fish egg or larvae.”
U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement had urged the court to decline the case since the EPA was responding to the 2nd Circuit decision. His brief said the government agrees that the EPA has authority to order the retrofitting, but disagrees with the court’s finding that it could not do a cost-benefit analysis.
The Supreme Court agreed to review only the cost-benefit question when it accepted the case today, SCOTUSblog reports.
Updated at 12:40 p.m. to add information about the scope of the Supreme Court review.
