Investor Presentaiton
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congressional wrangling. The agency may compel plant
owners to pay competitors. It can even force plants to
shut down. Yet Congress did not clearly say in any part
of the CAA, much less Section 111, that EPA can exercise
this transformative power. That omission dooms any
claim that EPA can.
Second, the D.C. Circuit's opinion reordered the
traditional "division of responsibilities” between States
and the federal government-over clean air and energy-
related issues alike. Train v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc.,
421 U.S. 60, 79-80 (1975). Regulating electricity
generation is the States' domain. The CAA, too, assigns
the States primary responsibility for regulating existing
emission sources. Yet the D.C. Circuit's approach to
Section 111 allows EPA to drive the essential decisions in
both areas. If Congress meant for that result, it would
have clearly said so. Here again, it did not.
II. The text Congress set down limits EPA's power,
too. Section 111 directs EPA to identify an "achievable"
"best system of emission reduction"; that system is then
used to calculate guidelines, and the States must develop
plans for sources within their borders to meet them.
Everything about Section 111-the words Congress used,
the structure, the context-shows that "system" means
measures implemented at the source level, that is, inside
a facility's fenceline.
The D.C. Circuit, however, concluded that Congress
put "no limits" on what "systems" EPA may use. The
court plucked select words from a definitional provision
and read them broadly, then refused to test its
construction against the statute's operative provisions to
see if it held up in practice. This approach was wrong. A
plain reading of the statute does not give EPA power to
reorder entire economic sectors.View entire presentation