THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The Supreme Court is taking up a case between private, profitable utilities who believe they have a god given right to dump all their shit in the air because it costs them money to clean it up. Against their position is the EPA which has been using its rule making ability to try and make them clean up their mess.

The Supreme Court is slated Monday to begin scrutinizing the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency in a case with a narrow focus but with the potential to touch on the very purpose of the regulator and the use of executive action by President Barack Obama.

The case — Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA — examines six challenges brought by various industry groups and conservative politicians against the EPA for what they see as regulatory overreach.

The plaintiffs say they hope the Supreme Court justices will answer questions that get to the heart of the function of the EPA, like whether the agency has the right to freely interpret the Clean Air Act without the consent of Congress and even whether the EPA has the right to regulate carbon dioxide as a polluting gas at all.

But the court may skirt those thornier questions in favor of narrower ones —deciding whether the EPA can regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, big factories and other stationary sources of emissions under the same authority it has used to regulate new motor vehicles and whether the agency may unilaterally raise the amount a stationary source is allowed to emit before the EPA can regulate it.

Experts say that no matter what the court rules, the EPA will likely still be able to impose permitting requirements and limits on emissions for stationary sources.

Despite the likelihood of the Supreme Court hearing’s limited scope, the case has become a catch-all for criticism of the EPA, which some conservatives see as a rogue agency, overstepping constitutional protections for free enterprise and carrying out the whims of a president who has stated he will take progressive actions “with or without Congress.”

“This case involves perhaps the most audacious seizure of pure legislative power over domestic economic matters attempted by the executive branch” since President Harry S. Truman tried to control U.S. steel companies during the Korean War, a brief signed by Rep. Michele Bachmann and other politicians read.

Many conservatives take particular issue with the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act — which was passed in 1963, decades before carbon dioxide was considered a pollutant — to make it easier to regulate carbon pollution. Specifically, the agency wants to change the amount emitted per year before a source falls under its purview, from 100 tons to 75,000 or 100,000 tons. Otherwise, the agency says, it would have to start regulating the emissions of not only power plants but also schools, hospitals and residential buildings.

Given the Supremes love affair with corporation rights, they are likely to rule against the EPA, long a bugbear of the radical Right. The real question is how narrow or broad in scope their ruling will be. Either way, just remember the pictures of Beijing's pollution and consider how the radical Right seeks a return of that to American air so they can make a few dollars more.