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Lump of coal

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark rulings at the end of its just-concluded term were mostly correct and in fact vital. But in a case involving coal-fired power plants that has special resonance for Ohio and Michigan, the high court got it regrettably wrong.

Justices voted 5-4 last week to block — but not overturn — a rule issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 that aims to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-burning plants. The state of Michigan was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the EPA, which Ohio and 21 other states joined, claiming that the agency had not made an adequate cost-benefit analysis of the rule’s effects.

EPA officials had argued that at a cost of less than $10 billion for the installation of pollution-control technology at coal-fired plants, the rule would yield benefits worth $37 billion to $90 billion — and would help prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths annually.

Industry critics countered, more through assertion than demonstration, that the agency based its estimates on unrealistic assumptions, and that the cost of the rule would exceed its direct benefits. Two-thirds of the nation’s coal-fired plants already meet EPA standards.

Writing for the Supreme Court majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said the EPA rule was invalid because the agency did not take costs into account before it decided to regulate. Still, the majority allowed the rule to stay in effect while the EPA revises it under the guidance of a federal appeals court, a process that is likely to take several years.

But Justice Elena Kagan noted in her dissenting opinion that the court majority had taken “barely a glance at all the ways in which the EPA later took costs into account.” She accused the majority of engaging in “micromanagement” of the agency, rather than showing constitutionally appropriate deference to it.

Craig Butler, the director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, told The Blade’s editorial page this week that the court ruling’s consequences for Ohio are “already played out.” Coal-burning plants in the state that closed rather than comply with the U.S. EPA regulation will not restart, he said.

But Mr. Butler said he was “gratified” that the high court had given the U.S. EPA “clear guidance” to revise its mercury rule. If an emergency should force Ohio to increase its use of coal-fired power, dealing with its environmental implications will remain critical.

Ohio has historically relied too heavily on dirty, if ostensibly cheap, coal — much of it from out of state — to generate power. Toledo was once one of the world’s biggest coal ports, although it didn’t ship coal much farther than Monroe or Detroit; that role will not recur.

For Ohio and other states, the EPA’s mercury rule — a product of the federal Clean Air Act — has been one of the Obama Administration’s most important environmental and public-health initiatives. As the agency reworks the rule under the guidelines set by the Supreme Court this week, it’s to be hoped that the revisions will not fatally weaken the necessary task of limiting the harmful effects of mercury pollution.

source: http://www.toledoblade.com