Lawyers for the coal and electric power industries go before the Supreme Court on Wednesday hoping to block a strict new federal rule against mercury and other toxic air pollutants.
Supporters say the rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency will save lives, but industry groups complain it will cost $10 billion a year to implement, resulting in higher energy bills for consumers.
The case is a key test of whether the high court will move to rein in the Obama administration's ambitious regulations.
At issue is whether the Clean Air Act requires regulators to weigh the cost of regulations against the expected benefit to the public health.
In the past, neither the law nor the high court had said a cost-benefit analysis is required for new regulations. Congress told the EPA in 1990 to study toxic air pollutants and set emission standards that were "appropriate and necessary" to protect the public.
In the two decades since then, the EPA concluded chemicals like mercury and arsenic were especially dangerous because they settle in rivers and lakes and build up in the food chain. Regulators decided coal-burning power plants were the primary source of these toxic air pollutants.
The EPA adopted the "mercury and air toxic standards" in 2012 and said they would go into effect in three years.
Lawyers for the coal and power industries argue it is common sense to consider the cost before deciding whether a regulation is appropriate. They also said an EPA study found a benefit of only $6 million a year from removing mercury from the air, a trivial amount compared with the estimated $9.6-billion-a-year cost of the regulation.
Environmentalists portray the case as one of "profits versus people." They also said the full benefit of the rule goes beyond mercury and includes lives saved and asthma attacks avoided. By this measure, the rule will yield benefits of more than $37 billion a year, they said.
U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's top courtroom lawyer, will defend the regulation. "EPA properly declined to consider costs in deciding it was 'appropriate and necessary' to list power plants for regulation," he told the justices in his written brief.
The rule, unless stopped by the high court, will affect about 600 power plants nationwide. It is expected to hit hardest in parts of the Midwest and South that depend heavily on coal for producing electric power.
On Twitter: @DavidGSavage
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