Other than Scalia and Thomas, the Kochs, 14 red states and power companies, everyone else won today. People with lung or heart conditions won, kids and fishermen and birds too. With only Scalia and Thomas whining in a nasty diatribe that the majority had taken away our freedoms with this law, the world won a hugh victory. The only freedom lost was the freedom of corporations to shoot the sky over your downwind neighbors full of heavy metals and poisons.
The fight was EPA's right to control interstate pollution. The coal fired power plant or refinery smoke made in one state pollutes the next state and they can't stop it, only the federal government could. The decision says the EPA should continue forcing industry towards an end to it.
This is one more accelerant for transition to clean renewable energy like wind and solar, and to the great relief of downwind states.
Here are the states who pissed away their taxpayer money in a fight for the right to pollute.
The 14 states that sued the EPA along with numerous power companies over the rules in 2012 (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin) are responsible for over half of the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide air pollution in the country.
I went down to Ft Campbell (Hopkinsville, Ky/Claskville, Tn) today and could see two coal fired plants belching out smoke - one is in Indiana and the stuff is crossing the Ohio River into Kentucky. But with McConnell being the senior senator from Kentucky and Boehner being the Speaker of The House from coal mining Ohio - And the Koch brothers money - Do we really expect any sort of a meaningful clean air bill pased in Congress?
ReplyDeleteRon