Foes of recently tightened EPA power plant regulations are now buttressing their legal attacks with the help of the Supreme Court’s decision last month to erase the Chevron doctrine.
In a filing posted late Wednesday in federal litigation, Talen Montana and other challengers argue that EPA is no longer entitled to “deference” on two points underpinning its updated emissions standards for coal and oil-fired electricity generators following the high court’s opinion in Loper Bright v. Raimondo.
“An agency’s judgment may be informative, but courts ‘may not defer to an agency’s interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous,’” they wrote in flagging the opinion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Specifically, their filing contests what they call EPA’s assertion that a rule is needed “even when the status quo“ already provides ample public health protections. They also challenge a Clean Air Act reading that new information on the deployment of existing technology constitutes a development warranting stricter regulations.
