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In a major setback for President Obama and for people who like to breathe, the court (in a 5-4 decision split along party lines) struck down a set of recent EPA regulations aimed at limiting pollution from coal-fired power plants.
The justices embraced the arguments from the industry and 21 Republican-led states that the EPA rules were prohibitively expensive and amounted to government overreach.
The decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, ruled that the EPA did not reasonably consider the cost factor when drafting regulation.
The Clean Air Act had directed the EPA to create regulations for power plants that were "appropriate and necessary". The agency did not consider cost when making its decision, the court ruled, but estimated that the cost of its regulation to power plants would be $9.6bn a year.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 30 2015, @06:13AM
We can't afford to live better, it's too expensive.
Next in the line (already started): we can't afford to live as well as until today, it's too expensive
What's after: we can't all afford to live, let's start a war???
Says who? Well...
Laugh at pollution in China no more: they do have a speck of dust in their eye, but US has a whole industry to make dust legit through law making, judiciary and executive.
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(please fix the un-closed <small> tag)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @06:30AM
Only the US considers property and money more important than life. Whether it's letting people kill others to defend property or letting major corporations pollute rather than pay to be clean, in America life is worth little. Sorta like slavery... Good thing you all have guns.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by penguinoid on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:19AM
Only the US considers property and money more important than life.
Every single country ever, and almost every individual, considers substantial amounts of property and money more important than life. For example, countries (and soldiers) fight wars. Even more so, people allow people in other countries to die from curable diseases or unsanitary water, and almost no one donates all but what they absolutely need to survive to prevent those deaths. Don't kid yourself -- most people value material goods over lives almost every second of every day, except when they have a personal connection to the life at stake.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:30AM
Only the US considers property and money more important than life. Whether it's letting people kill others to defend property or letting major corporations pollute rather than pay to be clean, in America life is worth little. Sorta like slavery... Good thing you all have guns.
Oh climb down before you hurt yourself.
Germany is burning some of the dirtiest coal in the world. Not a word out of you about that?
The EPA rule took effect for some plants in April and was due to go into full effect by next year. In the meantime, the rule remains in effect, lawyers working on the case told Reuters. The ruling only concerns the cost consideration, so the EPA may try to write the rule again with cost in mind.
So tempest in a tea pot. All that rant for nothing. A whole teaspoon of bile down the drain for nothing!
When setting the time frames, the EPA did not even allow for the manufacturing time for the equipment, they just supposed it into existence, which of course could not possibly be met regardless of the price. The EPA will go back, allow for cost of rushing production, delay things a year or two, and it will all get done.
In the meantime, the US regulations are the STRICTEST in the world [dw.com]. When they get implemented here, Germany and China will have to run hard just to catch up.
Compare to the Chinese standard (0.03 mg/m3) - Also the standard in all of the EU, including Germany:
1) U.S. standard, as it applies to a Bituminous coal plant: 0.0017 mg/m3
2) U.S. standard, as it applies to a Lignite coal plant: 0.0153 mg/m3
Our Lignite standard is HALF the Chinese/EU standard for ALL plants. Even their Bituminous plants are worse than our Lignite plants!!!
The Chinese/EU standards for Mercury is 17 times the US standard for Bituminous.
So while the EPA rewrites the cost alliances, (tax write offs, additional time to comply, what ever) the plants currently having scrubbers installed will be going ahead, under the regulations that will remain in effect. While the rest of the world continues to pollute at alarming rates.
Maybe next time do just a TINY bit of research before you start your hate spew!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:49AM
So, your argument can be broken up into two parts:
1) But others do it, too!
So? This isn't about them.
Now that we've dispensed with that completely irrelevant crap, let's get on to:
2) They can try again.
And the courts will be used again, and again, until the interests have watered down the rules so far that they're basically a waste of time.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @10:23AM
Your argument started with "only the US...", so it does matter what other countries do because it both makes your argument wrong and you an idiot.
(Score: 2) by penguinoid on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:20AM
Your argument started with "only the US...", so it does matter what other countries do because it both makes your argument wrong and you an idiot.
Only the US shares borders with both Canada and Mexico. Only the US has this many prisoners. Only the US spends this much total money on its military. Only the US has the biggest GDP of any country. Only the US has sent a man to walk on the moon.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:17PM
If you re-read it, you will see his argument is exactly only part. The US regulations are already the tightest in the world for HG from coal plants, and they are being met.
The rules aren't being watered down, in fact there is no indication of any change at all yet, other than that the EPA must take cost into compliance. The rules still stand. The court case ruled only about costs, and deadlines when fines kick in.
You think industry protests and chalenges are different than any place else?
Maybe look here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/14/german-backlash-grows-against-coal-power-clampdown [theguardian.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @12:46PM
I don't always see eye to eye with your comments but this was one hell of a good one. Thanks for breaking it down and making me feel that this wasn't going to release an onslaught of stupid laws.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:16PM
This. One of the local power plants already has been shut down [theintelligencer.net] to comply w/ the EPA rules because they couldn't afford to retrofit and meet the new standards.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @05:34PM
Its too expensive to properly dispose of this nuclear waste, therefore we'll just dump it into the river. After all, if its deemed "too expensive" by our company, that means we can just ignore it! Horray for precedents set after regulatory capture and bought representatives!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:43PM
energy industry crying 'oh, poor me!' ?
really?
REALLY?
we're too poor to afford to make clean energy.
yeah, I TOTALLY believe them. they can just barely keep their families fed, those poor babies. lets give them a pass and help those low-income CEO's afford to clean the air and water. its only our ONLY AIR AND WATER, what harm could there be on a little pollution between friends?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @06:03PM
Only the US considers property and money more important than life.
Probably posted from an iPhone.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:02PM
We can't afford to live better, it's too expensive.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. You want a better world, you need to work for it, not merely regulate it into existence.
And the arguments for continuing such a regulation suffer from the usual ignorance:
Earthjustice said that the rules now invalidated by the court’s decision would have saved “between 4,000 and 11,000 lives each year by substantially reducing pollution from the dirtiest plants”
Even if that were true, you still have lives saved by generation of that power too. A huge part of the problem is only considering one side of the equation. The US has other priorities than just minimizing mercury emissions.
Laugh at pollution in China no more: they do have a speck of dust in their eye, but US has a whole industry to make dust legit through law making, judiciary and executive.
Just because you can't get one onerous and excessive bit of regulation through, suddenly the US is as bad as China? Looking through this 2013 report [unep.org], it appears that the US is responsible for about 2% of world air emissions of mercury while China is responsible for 30%. China is only about four times larger in population, so that's a considerably higher per capita emissions of mercury.