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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The Supreme
Court heard arguments today in a

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major environmental case
over a rule that requires
states to stop their

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air pollution from drifting
over to neighboring states.

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Three states, led by Ohio, are
claiming the rule is too costly,

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and they're asking the
court to block the so-called
good neighbor plan.

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Coral Davenport is following all
this closely. She covers energy

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and environmental policy
at The New York Times.

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Coral, great to have
you back on the program.

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So, the good neighbor plan, as
I mentioned, says that states
have to do everything they

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can to stop their pollution from
sullying their neighbors' air.

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The states that are protesting
this rule, what is it that
they don't like about it?

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CORAL DAVENPORT, The New
York Times: So this rule
is the Biden administration

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strengthening a rule that
was already on the books from
the Obama administration.

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The Obama rule said that
power plants had to control
their pollution that goes over

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state lines and pollutes in
other states. The law actually
says that governments have to go

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back and strengthen this rule
every number of years. The
Trump administration did not

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do that. The Biden
administration went back, they
expanded the rule and said,

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we're also going to apply this
to a lot of other industrial
pollution, steel mills,

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factories, cement plants,
so a really significant
expansion of these controls.

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And this is what the
industrial states say,

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this is too much. This is
going to cost millions, if
not billions of dollars.

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It's a burden. It's a
tremendous economic imposition
on the engines of our state.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what is
the argument for it? I mean,
I guess broadly speaking,

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we could say air pollution
is bad. But the argument for
stopping this pollution is what?

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CORAL DAVENPORT: So, again,

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the Clean Air Act specifically
stipulates that the federal
government has to do this.

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It says that there's -- and
this is sort of interesting
because it has to do with the

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way the winds blow. You
have heard the phrase
the westerly winds that
blow across the United

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States. That's real. So
when you have a lot of
air pollution, smog in
the middle of the country,

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it is very well-documented that
winds actually blow that to the
eastern part of the country.

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So when you have a lot of
smog in states like Ohio and
Indiana, it ends up in the

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air of Delaware and
Connecticut. The senator
from Delaware recently said,

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we are the tailpipe of the
United States. And there's a lot
of evidence that that's true.

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So the law created this specific
regulation, essentially saying,

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you states in the middle
of the country where
this is coming from,

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you have to clean up to protect
your neighbors. Well, that's
part of it. And the other part

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is that there's a lot of
evidence that this smog
is really devastating
for human health.

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The EPA finds that this rule
would indeed be very costly. It
would cost the industry about

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$900 million a year to comply.
That's huge. It also finds
that it would save the economy,

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in terms of work days,
sick days, increased
asthma, respiratory
diseases, it would save

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the economy about $13 billion a
year in costs that are measured
in public health impacts.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And that
seems like a pretty clear
cost-benefit analysis.

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CORAL DAVENPORT: It is a
magnitude of difference.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The court
took up this case on what's
known as its emergency

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docket. And several of the
justices today, including
Ketanji Brown Jackson,

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seemed to take issue with that,
asking why this was so urgent.

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We talked with our
Supreme Court analyst,

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Marcia Coyle, about this
earlier. Here's what she
had to say about this.

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MARCIA COYLE: Justice
Jackson said she didn't
see the emergency. In fact,

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she wondered if this was
not just a case of the
states and industry wanting

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not to obey the law as
the lawsuit proceeded
through the D.C. Circuit.

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So what the court has is very
unusual here right now. They
always claim that they are

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court of review, not first
view. And they have nothing
to review in front of them,

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because no lower court has
yet to look at the merits
of the good neighbor plan.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And
yet the court seemed
very eager to hear this.

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CORAL DAVENPORT: And
it's very surprising.

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One reason is that the
entities that are specifically
the plaintiffs in this case

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are the newly covered entities.
So the power plants had already

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been covered. This regulation
expands the rules and
the controls to steel,

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cement, power plants
factories. Those rules don't
kick in, in until 2026.

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And yet -- so they're not...

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM:
Directly impacted now.

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CORAL DAVENPORT: They're
not directly impacted.
And yet they brought this

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case to the Supreme Court on
this emergency filing, saying
that this is going to have

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an emergency impact right
now and that the rule
essentially needs to be frozen,

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not implemented at all, until
all the litigation is complete.

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But it is extremely unusual
for the Supreme Court to even
hear a case like this. And that

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is kind of part of a trend
that we're starting to
see in this Supreme Court.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But
this court has shown a

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good deal of skepticism
towards a lot of
environmental regulations.

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CORAL DAVENPORT: Well,
that's always true of
a conservative court
historically, ideologically.

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There's more justices appointed
by Republican presidents on this
court. That's not surprising.

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Here's what's new. This is
the third in cases that they
are taking where, again,

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the regulation is not fully
implemented. Last year, the
Supreme Court heard a case

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on a water regulation that
was not yet implemented,
not yet fully on the books.

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Very surprising. Again, analysts
said they were surprised
that they took that case.

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They ended up choosing to
sharply limit the regulation. So
even before the government was

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done writing the regulation,
the court had told it, you have
to really rein back what you're

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doing. Same thing happened the
year before on a major climate
change regulation. Again,

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very unusual for the
court to have even taken
up the case before the
regulation was even done.

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The court told the government,
you're really restricted in
what kind of regulating you do.

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That regulation still isn't
out. But the government has
-- is taking its marching

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orders from the court on how
it can write these rules.
This is a new trend where

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it's not just conservative
justices expressing
skepticism of regulation.

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It's taking it to a new level of
ruling on these policies before

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they're even on the books
and dictating to the federal
agencies what they can then do,

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kind of handcuffing
them before they're even
done with their work.

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WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And it sounds
like, from the arguments today,

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that the same thing
might happen again.

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Coral Davenport of The New
York Times, always great
to see you. Thank you.

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CORAL DAVENPORT: Always
great to be here.