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