(Photo by Mr. Kjetil Ree., CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons)
Janis Petzel. MD.
In yet another unprecedented action, the United States Supreme Court dealt the Environmental Protection Agency (and possibly the entire administrative bureaucracy of the U.S. Government) a blow with its ruling overturning a 1984 decision known as Chevron, which, per the Associated Press, allowed lower courts to “defer to federal agencies when laws passed by Congress are not crystal clear.”
The original case forty years ago was about fishing regulations, but the executive branch of our government relied on the Chevron decision to make regulations across numerous agencies (like the Environmental Protection Agency) based on the expertise of their staff. You can imagine how cumbersome decision-making is going to become if regulations can be held up by Congress (either intentionally or by inherent dysfunction) or by needing to wind through courts.
On top of that, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision on Ohio versus EPA (which was discussed in G.E.T.’s June article, A Focus on Outdoor Air Pollution) stopped the EPA’s Good Neighbor Rule, which was intended to regulate and prevent air pollutants that crossed state lines.
NPR reported, “The EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan aimed to ensure compliance with the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards law. The EPA required each ‘upwind’ state to come up with a plan to reduce air pollution affecting ‘downwind’ state.” Per NPR, 23 states had failed to produce ozone emissions plans by February 2023, so the EPA was going to provide one. Ohio and various fossil fuel interests sued. The Supreme Court agreed that the emission reductions required by the EPA would do “irreparable harm” to many states who would have had to upgrade their power plants to comply.
The Supreme Court’s ruling was controversial, not just for its content, but because it arrived at the Court on the so-called Shadow Docket (as opposed to the usual Merit Docket). The Brennan Center, an independent, nonpartisan law and policy organization, describes the Shadow Docket as a “formerly obscure procedure…where the court rules on procedural matters such as scheduling and injunctions.” The Shadow Docket typically lacks transparency and may not hold extensive hearings or briefings and “send[s] mixed signals about precedent.” adding to confusion in lower courts.
The Supreme Court also decided 6-3 that those things we used to call bribes are actually “gratuities.” You can imagine what deep pockets those “gratuities” come out of.
Michael Mann’s book Our Fragile Moment (see interview page 32), describes a limited amount of time (years, not decades) for humanity to find the political will to stop burning fossil fuels to prevent the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which will drown our Eastern Seaboard.
I personally do not want fossil fuel companies to get a penny from me if I can help it, so I do my best to not buy gas, oil, or plastic. Maybe you can join me in my fossil fuel boycott.
And for heaven’s sake, vote. Things are getting a little scary out there in Politics Land.
Janis Petzel, MD is a physician, grandmother and climate activist whose writing focuses on resilience, climate, and health. She lives in Islesboro, Maine where she advocates and acts for a fossil-fuel free future. She serves on the Islesboro Energy Team and is a Climate Ambassador for Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/27/nx-s1-4996428/supreme-court-good-neighbor-plan
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/supreme-court-shadow-docket
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/supreme-court-leaves-it-to-states-to-prosecute-corrupt-gratuities
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