Michigan-led 
coalition wins 
SCOTUS challenge to 
emission standards

By SHOHAM GEVA

Daily News Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Last 
week’s ruling to legalize same-
sex marriage wasn’t the only 
Supreme 
Court 
decision 
in 
recent days directly tied to 
Michigan.
The Court struck down the 
Environmental 
Protection 
Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxic 
Standards Monday in a victory 
for a coalition of twenty three 
states and interest groups, led 
by Michigan, who initially chal-
lenged the regulations in the 
D.C. Circuit Court last year.
The 5-4 decision marks the 
end of a twenty-five year push to 
create the first U.S regulations 
governing levels of mercury, 
arsenic, metals and several other 
airborne emissions for most 
power plants, first authorized in 
1990 amendments to the Clean 
Air Act.
21 power plants in Michigan 
would have been subject to the 
standards if enacted, though the 
overall impact may have been 
limited due to existing state reg-

ulation on mercury and other 
airborne emissions that closely 
parallels the standards laid out 
in MATS.
In a statement Monday morn-
ing, Michigan Attorney General 
Bill Schuette called the ruling a 
victory for both family budgets 
and job creation in the state.
“The court agreed that we 
can and must find a constructive 
balance in protecting the envi-
ronment and continuing Michi-
gan’s economic comeback,” he 
said.
The judicial challenge hinged 
primarily on language in the 
amendments that instructed the 
EPA to implement the regula-
tions only if they were deemed 
“appropriate 
and 
necessary”, 
examining what costs had to be 
included in that determination.
The government argued that 
under that mandate the EPA 
was only required to consider 
the public health costs of the 
emissions, not the financial 
costs to power plants, in the ini-
tial decision to regulate. How-
ever, Michigan Solicitor General 
Aaron 
Lindstrom, 
represent-
ing the states, argued that the 
financial costs were also perti-
nent.
Justice Antonin Scalia, in 
delivering the opinion of the 
Court, acknowledged that there 
are situations where “appropri-
ate and necessary” wouldn’t 

indicate the need to consider 
cost, but said MATS wasn’t one 
of them.
“Agencies have long treated 
cost as a centrally relevant fac-
tor when deciding whether to 
regulate,” the opinion read. 
“Consideration of cost reflects 
the understanding that rea-
sonable regulation ordinarily 
requires paying attention to the 
advantages and disadvantages 
of agency decisions.”
Scalia also emphasized that 
though the agency considered 
costs later on in the process of 
drafting MATS, that consider-
ation wasn’t enough.
“By EPA’s logic, someone 

could decide whether it is 
“appropriate” to buy a Ferrari 
without thinking about cost, 
because he plans to think about 
cost later when deciding whether 
to upgrade the sound system,” he 
wrote.
That point was a key disagree-
ment between the majority opin-
ion and the four justices who 
dissented.
In a dissent joined by the other 
three dissenting justices, Justice 
Elena Kagan wrote that in look-
ing at the EPA’s process of draft-
ing the regulations as a whole, it 
was clear that financial costs had 
been considered, fulfilling the 
mandate of appropriate and nec-

essary.
“When making its initial “appro-
priate but necessary” finding, EPA 
knew it would do exactly that — 
knew it would thoroughly consider 
the cost-effectiveness of emissions 
standards later on,” Kagan wrote. 
“That context matters.”
Finalized in 2011 and set to come 
into effect this year, MATS would 
have required most coal and oil-
powered power plants to reduce 
emissions by ninety percent for 
some substances, such as mercury, 
and close to ninety percent for sub-
stances like acid gas.

9

Thursday, July 2, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

Supreme Court to review affirmative action

2013 case on race- 
based admission 
policy to resurface 

By EMMA KINERY

Daily Staff Reporter

After a historic week for the 
Supreme Court, during which 
justices legalizedsame-sex mar-
riage and overturned EPA regu-
lations, the Court announced 
Monday it would review a 2013 
case 
concerning 
affirmative 
action at the University of Texas 
at Austin.
The Supreme Court will rule 

on the case in the upcoming fall 
session in early October.
In 2008, Abigail Fisher, a 
white 
student, 
was 
denied 
undergraduate admission to the 
University of Texas at Austin 
for reasons she claimed were 
racially biased. During litiga-
tion for the case, named Fisher 
v. University of Texas, Fisher 
alleged that the school’s admis-
sions policy was in violation of 
the Equal Protection Clause of 
the Fourteenth Amendment.
The 
University 
of 
Texas 
admits 
students 
under 
the 
Texas Ten-Percent Plan, a sys-
tem that guarantees admission 

to in-state students who gradu-
ate within the top ten percent of 
their high school class. Because 
of the plan, eighty-one percent 
of incoming freshman at the 
University of Texas were auto-
matically offered admission in 
2008.
While race is not considered 
in admissions for students cov-
ered by the Ten-Percent Plan, 
race remains a factor in the 
admissions process for appli-
cants of the University of Texas 
who do not graduate within the 
top ten percent of their high 
school class. Fisher graduated 
in the top 12 percent of her class; 

however, because of her grades 
and 
extracurricular 
activi-
ties, she believed she deserved 
admission.
The case brought to light 
complications concerning the 
Texas Ten Percent Plan, which 
subsequently 
prevented 
the 
University 
admissions 
office 
from adopting a similar policy.
However, 
some 
campus 
groups, like the Coalition for 
Defending Affirmative Action, 
advocate for it. If the Universi-
ty were to adopt a similar plan, 
the top students in every high 
school in Michigan would auto-
matically be offered admission, 

which some believe would natu-
rally create an incoming class 
of students from diverse back-
grounds.
The Supreme Court consid-
ered the case for eight months 
before reaching a 7-1 decision 
in 2013 that Fisher’s case would 
be retired to a lower court. The 
ruling was based on Grutter v. 
Bollinger, a 2003 case in which 
Barbara Gutter, a white stu-
dent, was denied admission to 
the University of Michigan Law 
School in 1997. 

ZACH MOORE/Daily
Marge Iveide and Ann Sorrell receive the first same-sex marriage license in Washtenaw County, after forty-three years 
together.

AT LONG L A ST
Decision prevents 
EPA regulations

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

