It is easy for a judge, sitting in the climate-controlled comfort of a courthouse, to rule that coal-fired power plants providing the energy for that very courthouse are a “public nuisance” because of their emissions. After all, it is not the judge but the power plants and rate-payers who have to foot the bill for costly upgrades to reduce emissions.
Unfortunately, a federal judge in North Carolina issued just such a decision, ordering TVA to install billion-dollar emissions-control equipment at three of its coal-fired plants in Tennessee and one in Alabama – and to do so quickly.
Fortunately, in this case, a federal appeals court has reversed that ruling.
The appeals court said the lower court’s order would have encouraged courts “to use vague public nuisance standards to scuttle the nation’s carefully created system for accommodating the need for energy production and the need for clean air.”
The Clean Air Act, duly enacted by Congress, addresses the issues the lower court was trying to commandeer, the appeals court said. The decision properly keeps the courts out of the business of choosing the best approach to reducing pollution.
The American people obviously desire clean air, and our air is generally clean. But imposing costly requirements on the energy sector by judicial decree is a recipe for reducing the availability of affordable power. The appeals court was right to overturn the lower-court ruling.