Supreme Court Seen Maintaining High Bar For Hearing EPA NAAQS Cases

摘要

The Supreme Court's recent decisions rejecting without comment appeals over lower court rulings upholding EPA's national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) are seen by observers as signaling an ongoing strict bar for the high court to hear NAAQS lawsuits, a hurdle that has been in place since the court last took up a NAAQS suit in 2001. But even with little to show for their efforts, an industry source expects efforts to win Supreme Court review of the NAAQS will continue. Despite the legal expenses involved with such a case and the relatively low chances of success, the costs pale in comparison to the potential benefits of having the court impose new limits on EPA's NAAQS discretion, which the source says "may be worth billions of dollars" to industry if it were to get such a ruling.