Enviros were unhappy yesterday at the news that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the EPA should have taken into account costs to industry when it issued tougher clean-air standards in 1997. Last week, the court agreed to hear the federal government’s challenge to a lower court ruling that invalidated those tougher air-quality rules, which the agency based on public-health considerations. Yesterday, the Supreme Court broadened the scope of that case by agreeing to weigh a cross appeal from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Trucking Associations which argues that the EPA should also have considered the costs of its rules to business. The court’s decision, expected next year, will have wide ramifications for environmental protection.
