Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency, which seeks to obstruct the EPA’s ability to combat deadly interstate air pollution.
Leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC), including Co-Chairs Reps. Doris Matsui, Mike Quigley, and Paul Tonko, Vice Chairs Reps. Don Beyer of Virginia, Matt Cartwright, Sean Casten, Chellie Pingree, and Katie Porter, and Chair Emeritus Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, released a statement in response to the decision.
According to the leaders, the court’s stay of the EPA’s “Good Neighbor” plan represents yet another roadblock created by “a radically conservative Supreme Court to prevent the EPA from fulfilling its mission to protect our environment and our public health. EPA’s ‘Good Neighbor’ plan was designed to ensure residents of downwind states would not be the dumping ground of air pollution from upwind states. This dangerous pollution does not respect state boundaries, and EPA has the responsibility to protect the right of every American to clean air.”
The court’s decision will come at the cost of American lives if “our dirtiest power plants and industrial sources” are allowed to operate business-as-usual.
“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.’”
The conservative majority of the court “has gone out of its way to issue environmentally destructive decisions based on their whims, rather than sound legal theory. We fear for what other bedrock environmental laws and rules this Court may turn its attention to next.”
The SEEC is a coalition of 98 members of the U.S. House of Representatives that was founded in January 2009 to be a focused, active and effective coalition for advancing policies that address climate change, promote clean energy innovation and domestic manufacturing, develop renewable energy resources, create family-sustaining clean jobs, protect our nation’s air, water, and natural environment and promote environmental justice.
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Rebecca Barnabi
