People walk on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington.WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed the Obama administration an important victory in its effort to reduce power plant pollution in 27 Midwestern and Appalachian states that blows downwind and leads to unhealthy air.
The decision caps a decades-long effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to find a legally acceptable way to ensure that states are good neighbors and don’t contribute to pollution problems in downwind states, where environmental officials can do nothing to control it. The rule upheld Tuesday was EPA’s third attempt to solve the problem.
In a 6-2 decision, the court upheld a rule adopted by the EPA in 2011 to limit emissions that create smog and soot that drift into the air above states along the East Coast.
The ruling means that the polluting states will be forced to reduce smokestack pollution that sullies the air in downwind states. Industry and upwind states had fought the effort and paint it as another attempt by the administration to shut down coal-fired power plants.
Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg acknowledged the complexity of the problem before EPA.