The Supremes

Amidst the furor of the upcoming elections, equally important events are unfolding at the US Supreme Court today. We the People are taking on Big Energy in a case with far ranging environmental and regulatory implications.

Environmental groups are defending a Clinton-era clean air program that the Bush administration is trying to weaken, arguing to the Supreme Court this morning that Duke Energy Corp. must install costly pollution controls on its aging coal-fired plants.

The outcome of the case, Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy Corp., could affect three dozen power plants in 10 states where utility companies are challenging federal requirements under the New Source Review program. Arguments before the Supreme Court are set to begin at 10 a.m. today.

At issue is whether the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had the authority to handle the case when it ruled in favor of Duke. Also in dispute is whether pollution emissions should be calculated hourly, as Duke wants, or annually, as the environmental groups say.

The enforcement program is aimed at reducing power plant emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide that contribute to smog and acid rain. Retrofitting aging coal-fired plants with the latest pollution-control equipment is costing billions of dollars.

Blan Holman, an attorney at Southern Environmental Law Center, is arguing the case. O-No! interviewed him for the story:

A decision in support of the regulators could force power companies to install pollution equipment costing hundreds of millions of dollars per plant. It could also lead to greatly improved air quality, environmentalists say.

The plants collectively emit about 1.6 million tons per year of sulfur dioxide, a harmful pollutant that contributes to respiratory problems in children and the elderly, acid rain, and a white haze that sometimes shrouds the mountains.

"If cleanup is ordered on those plants, we're talking about a very major reduction of those 1.6 million tons," said Blan Holman, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents advocacy groups, including Environmental Defense, Sierra Club and Environment North Carolina.

Despite all the legal technicalities on which this case will turn, the underlying issue is a simple one: How much damage will we allow businesses to do to the environment? Duke Energy is poor-mouthing about everything these days. They want rate-payer subsidies for nuclear development, and they don't want to pay to clean up their own damn pollution.

Free-market fantasizers will argue that the "market" will eventually take care of it. Capital will flow efficiently if government would just get out of the way. And they're right. Capital will flow efficiently. But you know what else will flow? Shit will flow. And it will flow downstream - toward those least able to get out of the way. And while cats like the Puppetmaster get fatter and fatter, the common ground that makes our world livable and sane gets destroyed bit by bit by bit.

If this Supreme Court can find any way at all to favor private enterprise over the common good, it will. Another sorry legacy of the moron in the White House.