Air Quality

Justice Scalia’s Puzzling Dissent

Justice Scalia’s dissent in EME Homer contains a number of unusual lapses in substance and tone.

As I’ve been studying the opinions in EME Homer,  I’m increasingly struck by the oddities of Justice Scalia’s dissent.  There was a flap last week about his blunder, later quietly corrected, in describing one of his own past opinions.  But that’s not the only peculiarity of the dissent. As a quick reminder, EME Homer involved EPA’s effort to deal with interstate …

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Richard Lazarus Formally Notified the Supreme Court of Scalia’s Error

Letter Led to Change in Dissenting Opinion

Who knew that the U.S. Supreme Court has a formal process for notifying it about errors in Court opinions? Richard Lazarus, the Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law at Harvard and Supreme Court expert extraordinaire, that’s who.  Turns out that after he discovered Justice Scalia’s error about Whitman v. American Trucking (see my earlier post of …

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Dan Farber Highlights Scalia Error in Homer Dissent, Dissent Gets Corrected

Legal Planet post noted error yesterday

Yesterday Dan pointed out that Justice Scalia had made a “cringeworthy” error in his dissenting opinion in EPA v. Homer.  Scalia argued — in support of his claim that EPA’s interpretation of the provision of the Clean Air Act that governs cross-state air pollution was inconsistent with the plain language of the statute — that EPA …

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More About EPA’s Victory

The Court sensibly upheld EPA’s method of allocating responsibility between states, while Scalia wrote an unusually sloppy dissent.

As Ann has just written the Supreme Court’s decision today in the EME Homer case was a big victory for EPA and for air pollution control.  In an opinion by Justice Ginsburg, the Court upheld EPA’s interstate transport rule.  Ann focused on the potential implications of the decision for the other big environmental case pending before …

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Breaking News: Supreme Court’s Decision Upholding Cross-State Air Rule Is Good Sign for Greenhouse Gas Rules

Huge victory for EPA in regulating air pollution that crosses state lines

The Supreme Court’s 6-2 decision issued this morning in EPA v. EME Homer, upholding the agency’s rule to control air pollution that crosses state boundaries, gives plenty of reason for optimism that the Court will also uphold EPA’s greenhouse gas rules at issue in a different case, Utility Air Regulator Group v. EPA.   Both cases …

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California’s Path to 2050

Recent research shows that California can meet its 2050 climate goals at an affordable cost.

Could California make deep cuts in carbon by 2050 (80% below 1990 levels)?  Are the economics feasible?  Those are important questions for California, but they also have a lot to say about what’s feasible for the U.S. and other developing countries as a whole. Last December, UC Davis hosted a forum on the models that …

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Upcoming Climate Practitioners’ Workshop at UCLA

Explore recent legal developments in Federal and California greenhouse gas regulation for CLE credit

Why not earn your continuing legal education (CLE) credits while learning about recent developments in climate change law? Next Friday, March 14, 2014, the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law is co-hosting an all-day practitioners’ workshop that will explore cutting-edge developments in greenhouse gas regulation. “Navigating Climate Regulation on Dual …

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How Responsible Are Americans for China’s Pollution Problem?

An online conversation from several perspectives

Yesterday, I participated in an online conversation at Chinafile.com on the question of “How Responsible Are Americans For China’s Pollution Problem?”  I post the lead comment by David Vance Wagner of the International Council on Clean Transportation along with my response.  Elizabeth Economy from the Council on Foreign Relations and Isabel Hilton of Chinadialogue.net (among …

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Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA: Another Take on the SCOTUS Oral Argument

Decision favoring EPA seems likely

The venerable pastime of U.S. Supreme Court-watching always involves divergent opinions that, as Rick Frank noted, all should be taken with a grain (or even a pound) of salt. The outcome of Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA is decidedly uncertain, but I left the oral argument yesterday more optimistic than my Legal Planet colleague. …

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Deconstructing Today’s U.S. Supreme Court Arguments in Utility Air Regulatory Group

The EPA Could Well Lose This Challenge to Its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Efforts

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in the most important environmental law case of the current Term: Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. Based on those arguments–and, more importantly, the justices’ questions and comments–it appears that EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act’s …

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