Breathing room

摘要

Protecting the air, let alone improving it, is a challenge. America was reminded of that last month, as courts handed federal regulators two setbacks in as many weeks. On August 13th a federal appeals court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (epa) had overstepped its authority in rejecting a plan Texas had devised in 1994 for curbing emissions. And on August 21st a different appeals court struck down the ep a's cross-state air pollution rule, a 2011 measure designed to protect states from pollutants emitted by coal-and natural-gas-fired power plants in neighbours upwind of them.