UTILITY AND REGULATORY GROUP V. EPA
134 S.Ct. 2427 (2014)
NATURE OF THE CASE: Utility (Ps) filed petitions for review challenging actions of the
EPA (D) under the Clean Air Act related to greenhouse-gas emissions. Ps appealed the
dismissal of some claims and the denial of the remainder.
FACTS: The Clean Air Act regulates pollution from both stationary sources and moving
sources. Stationary sources are subject to the Act’s provisions relating to “Prevention of
Significant Deterioration” (PSD). It is unlawful to construct or modify a “major emitting
facility” in “any area to which [the PSD program] applies” without first obtaining a permit.
The statute sets numerical thresholds (100 or 250 tons per year) for emissions that will
make a facility “major,” it does not specify by how much a physical or operational change
must increase emissions to constitute a permit-requiring “modification.” Nor does it say how
much of a given regulated pollutant a “major emitting facility” must emit before it is
subject to BACT for that pollutant. D has established pollutant-specific numerical
thresholds below which a facility’s emissions of a pollutant, and increases therein, are
considered de minimis for those purposes. Title V of the Act makes it unlawful to operate
any “major source,” wherever located, without a comprehensive operating permit. Because
greenhouse-gas emissions tend to be “orders of magnitude greater” than emissions of
conventional pollutants, D projected that numerous small sources not previously regulated
under the Act would be swept into the PSD program and Title V, including “smaller industrial
sources,” “large office and residential buildings, hotels, large retail establishments, and
similar facilities.” D announced that beginning on the effective date of its greenhouse-gas
standards for motor vehicles, stationary sources would be subject to the PSD program and
Title V on the basis of their potential to emit greenhouse gases. D adopted a “phase-in
approach” that it said would “apply PSD and title V at threshold levels that are as close to
the statutory levels as possible. EPA codified step rules for sources emitting 50,000 tons
per year of CO2. Ps filed petitions for review and the Court of Appeals dismissed some of
the petitions for lack of jurisdiction and denied the remainder. The court granted
certiorari for one question: “‘Whether EPA permissibly determined that its regulation of
greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the
Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases.’”
ISSUE:
RULE OF LAW:
HOLDING AND DECISION:
LEGAL ANALYSIS:
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