http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/us/division-seen-in-supreme-court-on-pollution-limits.html
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed closely divided over the fate of one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives.Lawyers for industry groups and some 20 states told the justices that Environmental Protection Agency regulations that set limits on emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants had failed to take account of the punishing costs they would impose, a point that resonated with Justice Antonin Scalia.“I would think it’s classic arbitrary and capricious agency action,” he said, “for an agency to command something that is outrageously expensive and in which the expense vastly exceeds whatever public benefit can be achieved.” [snip] “This single regulation now on air toxins imposes annual costs of $9.6 billion,” said F. William Brownell, a lawyer for industry groups challenging the regulation. “And what does one get for it?” The answer, he said, was about $6 million in benefits.Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., representing the agency, did not dispute the annual cost of $9.6 billion. But he said the benefits amounted to $30 billion to $90 billion.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. responded that the “fairly dramatic disparity” between the two sides was a consequence of bad math on the agency’s part, which he said had taken credit for incidental benefits that could also have been achieved through different regulations. “It’s sort of an end run,” he said. [snip]
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