The Biden administration wants the Supreme Court to ignore a bid from Republican-led states and industry groups to halt EPA regulations on mercury and air toxics emissions from power plants.
In a response brief filed Friday, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote that most of the nation’s coal-fired power plants already meet the new EPA limits and that only two units in the country would need significant upgrades to comply.
She noted that EPA is required by law to set the strictest possible limits on the pollutants covered under the agency’s mercury and air toxics, or MATS, rule. Those hazardous pollutants include neurotoxins and carcinogens.
“In adopting the rule at issue here,” Prelogar wrote, “EPA correctly determined that it had discretion (if not an obligation) to revise the applicable standards even if emissions from coal-fired power plants did not currently pose a public-health risk sufficient to trigger EPA’s separate duty to act.”
