{"id":8524,"date":"2010-01-08T15:53:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-08T20:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=8524"},"modified":"2010-01-08T15:53:23","modified_gmt":"2010-01-08T20:53:23","slug":"the-epa-power-grab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/01\/the-epa-power-grab\/","title":{"rendered":"The EPA Power Grab"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"epa_logo\"My thanks to Prof. Slavin for inviting me to serve as student blogger of the month.\u00a0 I shall do my level best to maintain the high standards set by the MULS Faculty Blog.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a finding that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, constitute a threat to human health and welfare as defined under the Clean Air Act (CAA).\u00a0 This is significant because the CAA allows the EPA to regulate any pollutant that the EPA finds a danger to human health and welfare.\u00a0 As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stated, \u201c[i]f we don\u2019t act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the planet we will leave to the future will be very different that then one we know today.\u201d\u00a0 If the EPA does decide to act, the same statement will apply to the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n

The EPA\u2019s announcement did not come as a surprise.\u00a0 In fact, the litigation over this issue has been many years in the making.\u00a0 Two years ago, in Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em>, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the Supreme Court held that the section of the CAA dealing with \u201cair pollution\u201d was broad enough that it included carbon dioxide.\u00a0 However, that case centered on the regulation of carbon dioxide emitted from automobiles\u2014the recent EPA finding would be radically more expansive.<\/p>\n

Under Title V of the CAA, any entity that emits more than 100 tons per year of an EPA regulated pollutant must first obtain a permit, and then pay an emission fee of around $43 per ton of pollutant.\u00a0 Because 100 tons is such a small amount of carbon dioxide, this proposed regulatory change would sweep most apartment complexes, commercial buildings, hospitals, and other large buildings under the EPA\u2019s ambit.\u00a0 The result would force companies to file copious amounts of paperwork and pay substantial fees to continue doing business as usual.<\/p>\n

The EPA recognizes this problem, and concedes that this new requirement could increase the number of entities seeking Title V permits from 15,000 a year to six million a year.\u00a0 That\u2019s a lot of increased paper cuts for EPA bureaucrats, so the Agency has so graciously offered to give Congress a break and rewrite the Clean Air Act itself.\u00a0 According to the EPA\u2019s new \u201ctailoring rule<\/a>,\u201d the EPA would only enforce Title V of the CAA for entities that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, instead of the 100 tons per year required under the CAA.\u00a0 The EPA justifies this arrogation of legislative power on the grounds that absurd results would follow if it enforced the CAA literally.\u00a0 This is ironic, given that the petitioners in Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em> argued that a literal reading of the CAA required the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to watch the response from Congress.\u00a0 One interpretation of the EPA\u2019s actions is that the announcement was merely a shot across the bow to the Senate to galvanize the upper-chamber to pass cap-and-trade legislation.\u00a0 However, after the flap over the Climate Research Unit e-mails, cap-and-trade appears dead.\u00a0 Thus, Congress could either rewrite the law itself, or call the EPA\u2019s bluff.\u00a0 Regardless, the decision will have significant consequences for both the economy and the notion of separation of powers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My thanks to Prof. Slavin for inviting me to serve as student blogger of the month.\u00a0 I shall do my level best to maintain the high standards set by the MULS Faculty Blog. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a finding that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, constitute a threat to human health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}