Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA - Supreme Court of the United States Docket No. 12-1146 - But Who Are the Petitioners?

The conservative justices on the SCOTUS wasted valuable court time today nitpicking away at the EPA's ability to use the Clean Air Act (CAA) for regulating new and expanded power plants. When you consider that the previous 2007 decision determining the CAA definition of "air pollutant" did indeed include CO2 and other GHGs so therefore they fell under the EPA's regulatory purview went unchallenged, and that the real fight over existing power plants is yet to come, you gotta wonder why they even bothered. It's almost like accepting a legal challenge against universal healthcare just so you can split hairs over whether it's a tax or a penalty, while allowing it to remain the law of the land.

Gee, thanks for that.

Anyway, if you care to learn more, here are the majority and minority court opinions, and a decent breakdown of events/arguments leading up to and included in the case.

What I'm mainly interested in, however, is the identity and motivations of the EPA's major challengers in this silly case.

First, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) would seem to have good intentions. That is, until you delve a little deeper and find out how its bread gets buttered, and what the president of the organization has to say about the EPA's regulatory powers.

Well, we're very concerned that EPA taking action under the Clean Air Act is really like taking a sledgehammer to what is one of the most complicated and complex public policy issues we're confronted with in terms of how to manage and reduce greenhouse gases, while ensuring that our economy can continue to grow.

Funny how these proponents of fracking like to gush about the environmental benefits of the process/fuel until push comes to shove. What happened to this strong declaration from the "products of chemistry empower our nation’s efforts to improve energy efficiency" link above, Prez Dooley?

Three energy sources—domestic natural gas from shale formations, energy efficiency and energy recovery from plastics—can help America reach energy security and environmental goals.

Hmmm, all of a sudden when domestic natural gas has to face the emissions regulation music, all that green confidence withers away, and it's the environmental goals of the nation that have to change or be filtered through more industry-friendly channels.

...it ought to be the Senate and working with the House that is developing the policy which identifies the targets in terms of the reduction and emissions in the United States, the timing of those reductions, because that is going to be consistent with the popular will of the constituency in this country. EPA is basically circumventing what I think is the legitimate authority and jurisdiction of Congress and, again, taking a very aggressive approach that, unfortunately, is going to have dire and significant adverse consequences on the health of this economy.

Turns out fracking our way to a carbon-free utopia ain't quite as certain as previously advertised. Gosh, how shocking.

Second, the Utility Air Regulatory Group. Since it seems to have such a diffuse membership there is no single Web site, let alone public declarations on climate change, I will let its lawyers do the talking.

The Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) is a not-for-profit association of individual electric utilities and electric generating companies and national trade associations that participates on behalf of its members collectively in administrative proceedings under the Clean Air Act, and in litigation arising from those proceedings, that affect electric generators.

The UARG's interests are rather obvious and self-evident, so I will say no more.

Third, the Energy-Intensive Manufacturers Working Group (EIMWG), another nebulous, Web site-free organization, seems preoccupied with the possibility that the EPA will show up at their job sites, demand they change cafeteria light bulbs, Darth-Vader their plans, or, say it ain't so, make them upgrade their boilers.

At one extreme, the microscopic, the Agency confirms that control options could reach the selection of light bulbs in a factory cafeteria...At the other extreme, with respect to the most fundamental matters, EPA states that permitting authorities can demand changes that would “fundamentally redefine the source,” as otherwise defined by the facility owner’s “goal, objectives, purpose or basic design of the facility”...One example of regulation between these extremes of light-bulb selection and facility-redefinition involves the commercially and industrially ubiquitous “natural gas boiler.”

Ooooooooooooookay then.

Fourth, the Southeastern Legal Foundation. From a page on their site with the charming browser tab and search engine result title "Global Warming?"...

We have developed the SLF Global Warming Litigation Project to challenge the climate change alarmists and the Obama Administration's agenda for radical, costly regulation - based, as we maintain, on flawed science, political agendas, and the multi-billion dollar carbon trading giants waiting in the wings.

At stake are hundreds of billions of dollars that will come from your 401(k), show up in your energy bills, and will result in the loss of tens of thousands of American jobs. Al Gore’s profit-making enterprise – the selling of billions of dollars in so-called “carbon credits” – is based on fraudulent science and a politically driven environmental extremist agenda bent on destroying the American economy.

Do you have hundreds of billions of dollars in your 401(k)? Because I don't. But, seriously, you just gotta laugh at dopes who write these ridiculous Chicken Little right-wing apocalyptic fantasies and then have the nerve to call others "alarmists." The fook is that all about? As if such awful denier pap weren't bad enough, look who is serving as this group's informal legal counsel. LOL.

Fifth and final (because we're starting to venture into some serious nut-job territory), the State of Texas. Who is the governor there again? Oh, that's right...

“I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes, our climates change. They’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed. But I do not buy into, that a group of scientists, who in some cases were found to be manipulating this data.”

—Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Aug. 17, 2011

Yup, nut-jobs, like I said.

Well, that should give you a pretty good idea why a conservative-dominated SCOTUS was eager to entertain such a frivolous lawsuit delivered to its door by clown car.