Chief justice rejects plea to block air pollution rule

[kpete]

Source: The Hill

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a plea Thursday to block a contentious air pollution rule for power plants, in a big victory for the Obama administration.

Roberts’s order came despite his court’s 5-4 decision last year ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation, known as mercury and air toxics standards, is illegal.

Michigan led a group of 20 states last month, empowered by the Supreme Court’s recent unprecedented decision to halt the EPA’s climate change rule for power plants, in asking the court to live up to its ruling last year and block the regulation’s enforcement.

“Unless this court stays or enjoins further operation of the Mercury and Air Toxics rule, this court’s recent decision in Michigan v. EPA will be thwarted,” the states wrote in a Feb. 23 filing with the court.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/271614-chief-justice-rejects-plea-to-block-air-pollution-rule

[mountain grammy]

1. must have been a "bad air" day...

[Lucky Luciano]

2. .

[rurallib]

3. He can do that on his own?

Don't know if I have ever heard of such an action before, but I am not a Court scholar.
Read the article and went to scotusblog and both just say he did it.

Thanks for the info.
That should earn Roberts a huge round of scorn from the crazies

[Cosmocat]

5. Every now and again

He breaks ranks and actually acts as something other than a republican operative.

[houston16revival]

4. I'm speechless

Maybe right to life has exceeded corporate polluters in this decision?

I always did wonder, if you're going to be right to life, what good is

that if you're going to then poison people?

Scalia would never have allowed this ruling to happen.

[modrepub]

6. 30 years in the making

The Mercury rule was originally put in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. Power plants have been riding an exemption for all this time. Most responsible plant owner complied with this rule last year. This action just closes the door on this (I hope). For those who don't think this is necessary I'd point them to all the state fish advisories, which are triggered by Mercury emissions from all these (coal-fired) power plants.