A news director at this station, about a decade ago, wanted me to engage in what some call pack journalism, to talk about whatever was occupying the press’s attention. I understood his point; people’s interest was already peaked. Plus the more people talk about the same things, the more it tends to sink in. But I’ve never liked piling on. If you heard it elsewhere, I feel no need to restate it. I like to bring up something else, or a different perspective. I feel more useful that way.
This week I’d like to bring up a case much less talked about than the Supreme Court term’s blockbusters on same-sex marriage and medical care. Those are very important decisions. But here’s another worth examining. On June 29, the Supreme Court decided Michigan v. EPA. According to Justice Scalia and the conservative majority, the case was about whether the EPA needed to consider the costs of regulation. According to Justice Kagan and the liberal dissenters, the case was about whether the EPA needed to consider costs separately before considering specific regulations.
Sometimes court decisions lead one down the rabbit hole with Lewis Carroll. According to Justice Kagan, the EPA did consider costs. It took costs into account in the specific regulations for each type of power plant. It considered costs by adopting ways to mitigate the cost of the measures required to catch up with up-to-date emissions control systems. It decided against more stringent controls because it decided they would not be cost-effective. And it elaborately examined the quantifiable costs and benefits. The problem: it did all that in the wrong order. The result – the rule is on hold now; the agency will have to do some work to show it studied cost the way the Court wants it done before it can re-impose regulation.
That’s one of the main purposes of taking administrative agencies to court – delay can be worth a lot of money to business and industry even if they will eventually have to comply. In other words, regulations can protect the public, but courts can delay them.
Barely mentioned was how much mercury and other toxic pollutants coal fired power plants could send into the air we breathe. Scalia and the industry said there were merely several million dollars damage to the public per year. Kagan and the EPA said the damage was in the tens of billions. Of course much of the damage cannot be measured in dollars anyway – it is about lives damaged and destroyed by mercury and other toxic pollutants.
Republicans have been fighting for years against regulation of mercury emissions. Democrats just as long have been fighting to clean the air of the kinds of things that could damage our health and our ability to lead productive lives. But consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds: Republicans would do everything possible to control addictive drugs that damage our lives, health and minds – they are used by bad people. But Republicans would not control pollutants that damage our lives, health and minds – they are emitted by good people. Democrats, of course, the reverse.
So which congressman, and which justice, is in whose pocket? Some of them apparently define good and bad people by the money in their pockets instead of the things they do to others. Whatever happened to equal justice?
Steve Gottlieb is Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor of Law at Albany Law School and author of Morality Imposed: The Rehnquist Court and Liberty in America. He has served on the Board of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and in the US Peace Corps in Iran.
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