Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the latest effort to stay EPA's Clean Power Plan before it has even been promulgated in the Federal Register. The Court simply stated that "petitioners have not satisfied the stringent standards that apply to petitions for extraordinary writs that seek to stay agency action."
Really? Tell me something I did not know.
I'm sorry. The CPP is a far-ranging rule. There are strong legal arguments against its validity. Those arguments may prevail. I see it as about a 50/50 bet. This I do know, however. The sky isn't falling. The sky won't fall, even for West Virginia, if the rule is affirmed and implemented.
Those opposed to regulation have made these arguments from time immemorial – certainly no later than when Caesar tried to regulate the amount of lead in Roman goblets. And if I've got that one wrong, at least no later than Ethyl Corporation v. EPA, when opponents of EPA's rulemaking on leaded gasoline thought that the rule would mean the end of western civilization.
I'm not naïve. I understand that these arguments are political as well as legal. I just think that opponents of EPA rulemaking undermine their own political position in the long run by repeatedly predicting catastrophe, even though catastrophe never arrives.
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