{"id":1144,"date":"2013-05-14T16:48:45","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T20:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/elr\/?p=1144"},"modified":"2023-07-25T16:00:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T20:00:21","slug":"changing-climate-unchanging-act-improvising-agency-enabling-court-the-story-of-coalition-for-responsible-regulation-v-epa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/2013\/05\/14\/changing-climate-unchanging-act-improvising-agency-enabling-court-the-story-of-coalition-for-responsible-regulation-v-epa\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Climate, Unchanging Act, Improvising Agency, Enabling Court: The Story of Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Laura King<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA<\/em> follows from and amplifies the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in <em>Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em>. Both cases announce the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s power to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act \u2014 with <em>Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em> prodding a reticent EPA into regulation of greenhouse gases under the motor vehicle provision of the Act, and <em>Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA<\/em> affirming both EPA\u2019s obedience to<em> Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em> and the agency\u2019s new willingness to extend greenhouse gas regulation to stationary sources. The cases are significant because they together stimulated and sustained the first controls on greenhouse gases in the United States, altering a status quo in which greenhouse gas emissions were free \u2014 not taxed or regulated or otherwise constrained.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, <em>Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA<\/em> is a win for the environment. Its effect is to preserve permitting requirements for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases. It also supports and extends the Supreme Court\u2019s recognition in <em>Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em> that EPA may regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. However, what the case reveals about the American legal system\u2019s ability to respond to changes in the natural world is sobering. It exposes a system in need of revision: one in which lawmaking, designed to be measured, manages instead to be dawdling, and agencies and courts must summon all of their resources \u2014 prognostication, strategy, rhetorical finesse, and luck \u2014 to turn outdated statutes toward pressing threats. In this case, in an effort to provide some response to climate change and thus fulfill broader public mandates, both EPA and the D.C. Circuit held statutory language at arm\u2019s length: EPA, by promulgating rules that \u201ctailored\u201d the clearest kind of statutory language \u2014 numbers; the court, by calling on standing doctrine to avoid facing \u2014 and thus having to overturn \u2014 EPA\u2019s fast-and-loose interpretation.<\/p>\n<p>These choices, which were essentially workarounds to avoid the application of straightforward statutory language, together succeeded in preserving greenhouse gas regulation, but not without risk and compromise to environmental positions. Whenever an agency departs from statutory language, it risks reversal. That risk is especially acute when the reviewing court is the D.C. Circuit and the reviewing panel includes David Tatel, who, in his capacity as a judge on the D.C. Circuit, has urged agency officials \u2014 if they are to satisfy the court and fulfill their role as responsible public servants \u2014 to \u201c(1) [r]ead the statute; (2) read the statute; (3) read the statute!\u201d The D.C. Circuit, for its part, preserved EPA\u2019s workaround by doing a workaround itself, one that shrinks somewhat that cornerstone of environmental litigation: standing doctrine.<\/p>\n<p>Part I of this comment puts <em>Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA<\/em> in context by reviewing the history of greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. Part II profiles the case itself. Parts III and IV use <em>Coalition for<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Responsible Regulation v. EPA<\/em> as a showcase for the nimble, risky choices required of agencies and courts as they use outdated statutory frameworks to respond to new environmental challenges. Thus, Part III shows EPA balancing the danger of taking a red pen to the Act, on the one hand, against the danger of overseeing a sprawling regulatory program, on the other. Part IV shows the D.C. Circuit preserving EPA\u2019s approach to regulation of greenhouse gases at the cost of narrowing the doctrine of standing. The trade, as we will see in the details, is not terrible, but it is a compromise nevertheless.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cite as<\/strong>: Laura King, <em>Changing Climate, Unchanging Act, Improvising Agency, Enabling Court: The Story of <\/em>Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA, 37 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 267 (2013).<\/p>\n<p>[btn link=&#8221;http:\/\/harvardelr.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/79\/2013\/05\/King.pdf&#8221; color=&#8221;forestGreen&#8221; size=&#8221;size-l&#8221;]View Full Article (PDF)[\/btn]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Laura King Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA follows from and amplifies the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Massachusetts v. 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