SCOTUS Puts Brakes on EPA's 'Good Neighbor' Pollution Plan

The Supreme Court is putting the Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution-fighting "good neighbor" plan on hold while legal challenges continue, the conservative-led court's latest blow to federal regulations. The justices in a 5-4 vote on Thursday rejected arguments by the Biden administration and Democratic-controlled states that the plan was cutting air pollution and saving lives in 11 states where it was being enforced, and that the high court's intervention was unwarranted. The rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution, reports the AP. It will remain on hold while the federal appeals court in Washington considers a challenge to the plan from industry and Republican-led states.

The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has increasingly reined in the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. The justices have restricted the EPA's authority to fight air and water pollution—including a landmark 2022 ruling that limited the EPA's authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming. Three energy-producing states—Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia—challenged the air pollution rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it costly and ineffective. They had asked the high court to put it on hold while their challenge makes its way through the courts.

The challengers pointed to decisions in courts around the country that have paused the rule in a dozen states, arguing that those decisions undermined the EPA's aim of providing a national solution to ozone pollution because the agency relied on the assumption that all 23 states targeted by the rule would participate. The court heard arguments in late February, when a majority of the court seemed skeptical of arguments from the administration and New York, representing Democratic states, that the "good neighbor" rule was important to protect downwind states that receive unwanted air pollution. The EPA has said power plant emissions dropped by 18% last year in the 10 states where it has been allowed to enforce its rule, which was finalized a year ago.

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