14 DAY TRIAL // This April 29, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States has the right to and should regulate air pollution that moves across state lines.
The verdict is hailed as a major achievement in terms of safeguarding public health, especially in areas that sit downwind of states known to produce significant amounts of air pollution.
Information shared with the public says that, in a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court gave its blessing to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which the Environmental Protection Agency finalized back in July 2011, The Wire reports.
Under this rule, as many as 28 states located in the country's East, Midwest and South are required to take steps towards reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, that were documented to travel across state lines and impact on air quality in downwind regions.
Since downwind states cannot protect themselves from this threat to public health by attempting to regulate polluting activities in other regions, the Agency saw fit to intervene under the Clean Air Act, and rolled out said Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
Opponents to this move labeled the Rule as a regulatory overreach and argued that it would surely have a negative impact on polluting states, and especially on electric utilities.
More so given the fact that, all things considered, the regulation will probably affect about 1,000 power plants that are now up and running in the Eastern half of the United States. Of these plants, some have been around for many years and face several other pressures.
By the looks of it, the Supreme Court does not care all that much about how the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule will affect polluting states, and quite a lot about safeguarding downwind regions. Hence its decision to uphold the Agency's regulation.
Commenting on the Court's verdict, John Walke with the Natural Resources Defense Council said, “Implementation of these long overdue protections will prevent thousands of premature deaths and save tens of billions of dollars a year in health costs.”
“The EPA safeguards follow the simple principle that giant utility companies shouldn't be allowed to dump their dirty emissions onto residents of downwind states. The Supreme Court wisely upheld this common-sense approach,” the director of the Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council added.
Interestingly enough, this piece of news comes shortly after the American Lung Association announced that, according to recent data, nearly 50% of the people living in the United States breathed unhealthy air at that time.
Check out the map below to see which states are to be affected by the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
