Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency

In the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) Ruling, number 14-46, Michigan ET AL. v. Environmental Protection Agency ET AL., (2015) Argued on March 25th, 2015 and decided on June 29th, 2015, The almost 3 months of deliberation yielded the following:

It held that the EPA interpeted 7412(n)(1)(A) incorrectly, the law which allows the agency to regulate power plants if it concludes that "regulation is appropriate and necessary" after studying hazards to public health posed by power-plant emissions. "EPA interpreted 7412(n)(1)(A) unreasonably when it deemed cost irrelevant to the decision to regulate power plants. Pp. 5-15."

You see, the regulations the EPA attempted to reach for would impose a $9.6 BILLION per year cost, whereas the quantifiable benefits from the resulting reduction in hazardous-air-pollutant emissions would be anywhere from $4 to $6 million a year. I think someone in government allowed their righteous battle against pollution of our atmosphere to get in the way of common sense.

The question I have is - Instead of fighting to ask for a win that would make these cornerstone power generation companies fight for any reasonable way to remain in business, why did then active administrator for the Environment Protection Agency not work more closely with the companies to come up with win-win solutions? What is stopping the current or future administrations from attempting the same?

This decision supports the importance of our power generation utilities in the United States but also underscores the problem with reaching across the aisle to find solutions to these issues without wasting the resources of both the Supreme Court and the Congress of the United States of America on "unreasonable" regulations - their word, not mine.

The Right of All Americans to Marry, Regardless of Sexual Orientation

The 2011 SCOTUS decision on free speech basically states "The First Amendment protects from tort liability a person who speaks about a public issue on a public sidewalk, even if that speech is "outrageous."

This of course protects our free speech as it protected the rights of the Phelps family to spew hate speech that is in poor taste.


It also likely fueled the flames for the protection of all American's right to marriage equality - a decision handed down just this year (2015, and well overdue) protecting the right of all American's to marry regardless of sexual orientation.