West Virginia v. EPA: Will the Supreme Court Defer to Chevron?

(Source) I.     Background  In 1970, with the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), Congress enacted the Clean Air Act (“CAA”), which marked the first step towards federal regulation of air pollution. Section 111(d) of the CAA authorized the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. Based on this provision, the Obama administration and the EPA promulgated the Clean Power Plan (“CPP”) in 2015, which assigned individual targets to each state for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. However, due to concerns that the CPP transcended the EPA’s mandate under the CAA and intruded states’ rights to regulate electric power, the Supreme Court stayed its implementation.  In 2019, under the Trump administration, the EPA repealed the CPP before it could take effect. Instead, it issued a weaker Affordable Clean Energy Rule (“ACE”), which directed states to “set standards of performance for each plant, essentially allowing plants to decide the amount of pollution to emit.” The EPA’s own data revealed that the ACE may result in increased carbon emissions because it “created incentives to burn more fossil fuels.” Two years later, in January 2021, the D.C. Circuit Court vacated the ACE rule while holding that [read more]

Crime and Profits? The Story of the Most Profitable Punishment in American History

(Source) In 2015, Volkswagen admitted to engineering and rigging devices used on their diesel vehicles to skirt compliance with emissions testing and knowingly fouled the air by producing cars that were far out of compliance with emissions standards. Volkswagen’s befouling plot released 46,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, linked to an estimated 100+ deaths from the increased pollution. The repercussions for Volkswagen included pleading guilty to three criminal convictions resulting in a court-ordered criminal fine of $2.8 billion. The criminal fine was the largest ever imposed by the U.S. on an automaker. However, the criminal charges originated from the company’s acts of deceit and conspiracy against the U.S.; the charges did not stem from enforcement of the Clean Air Act (CAA) against polluters who knowingly violate it. The Act exempted “mobile source violators,” i.e., carmakers, from criminal culpability for emissions violations. In addition, thirteen executives and employees of the company and its subsidiaries faced criminal charges, with several receiving prison sentences. In the end, the company has had to pay more than $34 billion in fines and settlements, including the costs for buybacks and modifications of their rigged diesel cars. However, arguably, the most significant sanction against Volkswagen has been the [read more]

Global Warming and the Law: Why Legal Technicalities are Harming Our Environment

By Danny Ho The global warming controversy encompasses the on-going dispute about whether or not human activities, such as carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles, affect the global climate. Studies from scientific journals, such as the Environmental Research Letters, show that the general scientific community attributes global warming to human action. The Obama administration operates under the same belief and has pushed for the Clean Power Plan (CPP) in order to curb carbon dioxide emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the CPP, calling for stricter standards on carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants operating on coal and gas. Over half the states are against the CPP, arguing that the EPA is overstepping its legal authority. The CPP is currently in limbo because the Supreme Court has halted implementation of it until the D.C. Circuit Court decides on its legality. Regardless of the outcome in the D.C. Circuit Court, the decision will likely return to the Supreme Court for a final ruling. The need for the CPP is clear to its supporters. Global carbon dioxide emissions have increased by about a third since the Industrial Revolution, primarily as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. As a result, carbon [read more]