After a pair of country-killing decisions on gay marriage and Obamacare, the U.S. Supreme Court has thrown all that is good and right a little bone today by shooting down the Environmental Protection Agency’s power grab with its un-Constitutional rules against the coal industry.Obama lost big on this one, anyway.
The case involved the EPA’s assumption that it could make any rules it wanted even if those rules are so strict that they essentially destroy whole industries.
Now, in another 5-4 ruling, the SCOTUS has ruled that the EPA doesn’t have the power to make such extreme rules.
The EPA rules in question regulate hazardous air pollutants and mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants, known as the MATS regulations. The regulations went into effect April 16. The utility industry argues that the rules cost them billions of dollars to comply and that EPA ignored the cost issue in putting the regulations into effect.
Many of the companies have either made the investments or closed power plants to comply. If the investments necessary to upgrade a plant to comply with the regulation aren’t justified when considering the operational costs, revenues earned and other factors, then the decision is made to retire it.
The D.C. Circuit Court Appeals favored the EPA in a previous lawsuit filed by the industry, attempting to overturn the rules, which is why they took it to the Supreme Court to decide the cost issue.
This is a pretty big blow to Obama’s assumptions that he can do whatever he wants to do with regulations in order to push his global warming religion.