Supreme Court decisions put environmental protection at risk

The Supreme Court has put environmental protections under threat – issuing rulings that limit the power of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to combat climate change and pollution.

Two of the court’s recent rulings, both decided 6-3 along ideological lines, could have a far-reaching impact on agencies’ ability to create and defend rules governing greenhouse gas emissions as well as air pollution. and water.

Stan Meiburg, who was the EPA’s second acting official during the Obama administration, said people should be “very concerned” about the implications of the decisions and how they impact the government’s ability “to respond to the real crises we are facing right now.” . in our environment.”

Last week, the court struck down a legal precedent known as Chevron deference, which instructed judges to defer to federal agencies in cases where the law was ambiguous.

Eliminating this doctrine means that in difficult cases, judges are more likely to substitute their own interpretation of the law rather than that of a federal agency, making it more likely that an agency action will be overturned.

On Monday, the court also gave opponents of federal rules more opportunities to challenge them in court by extending the time an opponent of a rule has to sue. In practice, this is expected to allow new companies to challenge rules that were previously believed to be long-established.

Friday’s decision overturning Chevron’s deference raised significant alarm among environmental advocates.

While the ruling technically applies equally to administrations of both parties, Sam Sankar, senior vice president of programs at Earthjustice, described it as “profoundly deregulatory,” especially given the conservative makeup of the judiciary.

“This court is saying we should read the statutes in the first instance, not the agencies. We are the ones who resolve ambiguities. We don’t listen to the agencies, except, you know, third parties in litigation. And this is a deeply conservative court that reads statutes as narrowly as possible,” Sankar told reporters.

“The federal government and environmental groups will be paying attention to our litigation, just trying to preserve the status quo, and the industries and right-wing groups that support them will give everything they have to this. tool to try to make money from it,” he said.

Sanjay Narayan, lead attorney for the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program, said the Chevron decision also alters the historical deference to technical and logistical expertise within agencies.

“What this means, I believe, is that this decision will likely, even in small, everyday measures, undermine the effectiveness of a wide range of policies,” he said on a conference call with reporters.

Meiburg, the former EPA official, believes Monday’s ruling, allowing for later legal challenges, could have even more consequences.

“This seems to create an endless opportunity for no regulation to be resolved,” he said.

“They basically said, ‘Well, there’s no statute of limitations. [It] it’s not over until the injury actually occurs’ and all you have to do is create a new company and say, ‘Oh, we were injured’ and then you can reopen almost any rule,” he added.

Meiburg said regulations that are particularly vulnerable include long-standing limitations on how much air or water pollution an industry can release, including restrictions on dangerous air pollutants.

However, Nina Mendelson, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said that in light of recent decisions, she does not believe that one specific type of environmental regulation is more vulnerable than another, stating that “they are all vulnerable.”

“The message here is that agencies can be sued even decades later, and they have to prepare for a sticky game in the courts, both in their detailed analysis of highly technical issues and in their best efforts to offer an interpretation of the law that does sense and that is true for Congress’s purposes in enacting the law,” Mendelson said.

This is particularly true, she said, in light of a third ruling last week that suspended the Biden administration’s cross-state air pollution rule.

“One of the reasons the rule was suspended is because the court found that the EPA did not adequately address a specific concern raised by the challengers…even though the EPA had made great efforts to resolve many concerns surrounding the rule, and even though the specific issue… was not presented directly to the agency,” Mendelson said.

“This tells agencies ‘be prepared to face lawsuits over sensitive issues you may have never heard of before,'” she added.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story