June 29, 2015      4:52 PM
Supremes send EPA back to the drawing board on clean coal regulations
Challenge to Waters of the US rule appears to be bobbing on the horizon
Gov. Greg Abbott must feel a certain
satisfaction in the U.S. Supreme Court dressing down the Environmental Protection Agency
for failing to perform a cost-benefit analysis on its proposed regulation of
coal-powered plant emissions.
Of all
the Obama
Administration agencies Abbott targeted in his time as attorney
general, the EPA was his favorite. He has sued the agency multiple times in his
12 years as attorney general over what he called regulation overreach. He
emerged as a skeptic of climate change
during his campaign, although he admitted the state should protect the
environment. And, for good measure, Abbott as governor met went to Capitol Hill
in May to express his unhappiness over the Obama
administration’s Clean Power Plan.
Abbott’s
response today on the opinion, however, was measured, saying that the Supreme
Court had rightly upheld the argument that the EPA had violated the law when it
imposed a multi-billion-dollar regulation on power plants without considering
cost.
By Kimberly Reeves
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