Supreme Court Sets Arguments for Industry’s Shadow Docket Requests to Stay EPA’s Clean Air Good Neighbor Rule

Statement of EDF General Counsel Vickie Patton

December 20, 2023
Sharyn Stein 202-905-5718, sstein@edf.org

The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will hear oral argument in the February 2024 session in response to industry requests, submitted on the High Court’s shadow docket, to block or stay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Good Neighbor Rule – the Clean Air Act standard that protects people in downwind states from coal plant and industrial pollution that blows across state borders.

EDF released the following statement:

“EPA’s Good Neighbor Protections will ensure healthier longer lives for millions of people impacted by upwind smokestack pollution. The law and the science are clear and compelling that EPA’s common sense pollution limits are vitally needed and thoroughly reasonable. It would be a radical departure from settled law for the U.S. Supreme Court to damage these proven life-saving protections under our nation’s clean air laws – based on the same bedrock legal protections overwhelmingly affirmed by the Court in 2014.” 

            - Vickie Patton, General Counsel, Environmental Defense Fund

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