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Last year, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette took on the Environmental Protection Agency over new regulations of power plants concerning mercury and other emissions. He argued that the EPA had overstepped its bounds because they instituted new regulations without considering the cost of updates to meet them. The United States Supreme Court agreed that this was overreached, but instead of striking down the regulations as Schuette had hoped, they sent the case back to the Washington D.C. Circuit Court to determine how to move forward.
The lower court did not strike down the regulations, and the EPA argued that it was working on cost determinations. Recently, the EPA stated that the regulations were “appropriate and necessary,” meaning that they had to go into effect. Unhappy about this, Schuette appealed to the Supreme Court again, but the current bench, still short on Justice since Antonin Scalia died in February, decided not to hear the case. That means that Schuette, and 22 other states, lost and that the EPA won.
It’s not a surprise that Schuette is unhappy about this and calling it an overreach. It’s exactly what the people who put him to this, namely owners of power plants throughout the state, who don’t want to have to spend money to make their plants safe. A lot of the plants in Michigan and around the country, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, started implementing the changes before the original challenge, and didn’t bother to stop. In addition, over 50 Michigan based scientists asked the Attorney General to drop the opposition to the regulations, no doubt seeing that they were necessary to help preserve the environment.
The EPA was founded in the 1970s to preserve the environment in America and protect citizens from harmful waste and other byproducts, but has struggled since then to successfully control industry and big business.