Continuing its iterative approach to regulation, the US Environmental Protection Agency is looking anew at air-emission standards rejected in court.
This has become a pattern for the Obama administration's EPA. Summoned to action by law, the agency imposes the strictest possible controls. Sometimes, as with a deferred toughening of ozone standards in Obama's first term, EPA acts even without statutory prompting.
Regulated groups then sue, usually claiming among other things that EPA overstepped its authority. Sometimes they win; sometimes they don't.
When found to have acted too aggressively, EPA looks for a legal cure and resubmits the regulation—another iteration.
This process is costly, in no small measure because of the large number of lawyers required. It also prolongs the uncertainty of affected industries and worries anyone who thinks unelected officials shouldn't control the US economy.
EPA's imperiousness is frightening to watch. In its latest test of what it can get away with, the agency says it will return to the regulatory drawing board on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR).
The CSAPR's first iteration ran afoul of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in August. The assembly of regulations required power plants in 28 states to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen.
Electric power companies reliant on coal for fuel feared they wouldn't be able to acquire the necessary equipment in time to meet compliance deadlines. The court agreed with industry plaintiffs that EPA had exceeded its jurisdictional limits and ordered it to rewrite the rule.
Another day, another jerk on the jurisdictional reins. With the ozone overreach, the yank came from the White House.
No one should be surprised. This is, after all, the agency that has, with unfortunate judicial blessing, taken upon itself the regulation of greenhouse gases after Congress couldn't muster popular support to do so.
Like EPA, the economy and democratic governance win some and lose some.
