Greens want EPA to save air pollution rule

Environmental groups are pushing the Obama administration to revive the power plant air pollution regulations the Supreme Court overturned on Monday.

Greens said the court’s 5-4 ruling requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to merely file paperwork to formally consider the costs of regulating mercury, arsenic, acid gases and other pollutants for coal-fired power plants.

{mosads}The decision leaves the EPA’s rule in place while the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decides how the EPA can move forward.

The EPA considered the costs of the rule and concluded that it had a cost-benefit ratio of about 1 to 10. But it did not account for costs when determining whether regulating at all would be “appropriate.”

“This administration can and should complete its cost analysis promptly, and continue safeguarding public health and saving lives,” John Walke, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.

“The court’s ruling leaves the EPA rule in place, and we are confident the agency will meet its burden in justifying these important health standards, because the benefits to the American people overwhelmingly outweigh industry compliance costs,” he said.

A top Democratic senator agreed with that assessment.

“EPA should move quickly to incorporate its cost analysis into the rule, as called for by the Supreme Court, so that this critical public health safeguard, which prevents premature deaths, heart attacks, asthma attacks and emergency room visits, can remain in place to protect the American people,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

“The court gave EPA the ability to finalize these critical public health protections once and for all,” Lisa Garcia, an attorney with Earthjustice, said in a statement. “Now, EPA must act quickly. Thousands of lives are at stake. Further delay is not an option.”

The Sierra Club said the ruling puts the health of many Americans, including children and pregnant women, at risk.

“The EPA and the Obama administration must now quickly propose revised safeguards that restores at least the same level of protections,” said Mary Anne Hitt, director of the group’s Beyond Coal program. “It’s time to act to ensure progress made in cleaning up noxious pollution isn’t stalled any further, so that children across the America can grow up safe and healthy.”

The agency has not decided how it will proceed and whether it will try to keep the rule in place. But spokeswoman Melissa Harrison said the EPA “remains committed to ensuring that appropriate standards are in place to protect the public from the significant amount of toxic emissions from coal and oil-fired electric utilities and continue reducing the toxic pollution from these facilities.”

Zygmunt Plater, an environmental regulation professor at Boston College Law School, said the ruling is only a temporary setback for the EPA.

“The EPA already has the data that is needed — it just has to go back and amend the rule-making process slightly to take into account the later evidence,” Plater said.