Two U.S. Supreme Court rulings last week could put environmental protections in jeopardy that impact industrial sectors, including the chemical industry. The court blocked the EPA’s “good neighbor” rule on June 27, a law restricting emissions from power plants and industrial sources that drift across state lines and cause smog pollution, reports Oil & Gas Journal, an Endeavor Business Media publication.
The ruling faced opposition from multiple Midwestern states, including Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia among them, along with industrial organizations. They argued that implementing the decision would be financially burdensome and could lead to disruptions in natural gas supply.
A day later, the court overturned the so-called “Chevron deference” doctrine, a 40-year-old precedent named after the 1984 Chevron USA vs. the National Resources Defense Council case.
As Oil & Gas Journal reports, this principle, established by the 1984 case required courts to accept reasonable interpretations of unclear federal laws made by regulatory agencies. Under this doctrine, agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could argue that their interpretations of laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts should be upheld by courts, as long as these interpretations were deemed reasonable.
The Supreme Court decisions received praise from many industry groups and Republican lawmakers, while others said the rulings will harm the environment. The Alliance for Chemical Distribution (ACD), which represents more than 400 chemical industry distributors, issued a statement saying the decision to overturn the Chevron doctrine would eliminate interpretations of vague legal language.
“Chevron has limited the ability of courts to ensure agencies and regulators are interpreting the law as it was intended, with no real path for overturning unlawful agency actions or overreach,” said ACD president and CEO, Eric Byer.
The Supreme Court’s ruling will instill regulatory “checks and balances” by returning legislative power back to Congress, Byer said.
“This ruling is an important step in reining in administrative overreach that has been taking place for far too long,” Byer stated.
Members of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, led by Democratic Reps. Doris Matsui of California, Mike Quigley of Illinois and Paul Tonko of New York, released a statement in response to the “good neighbor” ruling, saying it was driven by a “radically conservative Supreme Court” that does not respect state boundaries.
“By allowing our dirtiest power plants and industrial sources to operate business-as-usual, this decision will come at the cost of American lives,” the committee said in a joint statement. “As even Justice Barrett said in her dissent, ‘The Court’s injunction leaves large swaths of upwind States free to keep contributing significantly to their downwind neighbors’ ozone problems for the next several years.’ And what grand legal theory did the Court base such an impactful decision on? As Justice Barrett goes on to say, ‘The Court justifies this decision based on an alleged procedural error that likely had no impact on the plan.’”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost who led an effort to block the good neighbor plan called the ruling a “significant victory for states’ sovereignty and the rule of law.”
“This plan, if implemented, would have imposed undue regulatory burdens on states – and the EPA doesn’t have the power to do that,” he said. In a brief filed in October 2023 seeking the stay, Yost and two other state attorneys general contended that the EPA acted unlawfully by failing to consider key aspects of a collective problem. "The EPA cannot impose such immense regulations on the States without having thought through all critical aspects of the problem it set out to solve," the brief says.
