Environmental Defense, et al. v. Duke Energy Corporation, et al. (549 U.S. 561)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 2, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 549 U.S. 561 · 127 S. Ct. 1423
- Decided
- April 2, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2006
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. In the 1970s, Congress added two air pollution control schemes to the Clean Air Act: New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD), each of them covering modified, as well as new, stationary sources of air pollution. The NSPS provisions define the term “modification,” 42 U. S. C. § 7411(a)(4), while the PSD provisions use that word “as defined in” NSPS, § 7479(2)(C). The Court of Appeals concluded that the statute requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conform its PSD regulations on “modification” to their NSPS counterparts, and that EPA’s 1980 PSD regulations can be given this conforming construction. We hold that the Court of Appeals’s reading of the 1980 PSD regulations, intended to align them with NSPS, was inconsistent with their terms and effectively invalidated them; any such result must be shown to comport with the Act’s restrictions on judicial review of EPA regulations for validity. I The Clean Air Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 1676, broadened federal authority to combat air pollution, see Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 845-846 (1984), and directed EPA to devise National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) limiting various pollutants, which the States were obliged to implement and enforce, 42 U. S. C. §§…
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