The Nickel Report

On October 17, the federal District Court of the Northern District of West Virginia ruled in a lawsuit brought by Murray Energy that EPA had violated Clean Air Act § 321(a)’s requirement that the agency “conduct continuing evaluations of potential loss or shifts of employment” that may result from EPA air regulations. Judge John Preston Bailey, a nominee of President George W. Bush, found that “Congress unmistakably intended to track and monitor the effects of the Clean Air Act and its implementing regulations on employment in order to improve the legislative and regulatory processes,” and that job loss evaluations “may have the effect of convincing the EPA, Congress, and/or the American public to relax or alter EPA’s prior decisions.” At that time, Judge Bailey gave EPA just two weeks to come up with a plan to evaluate those impacts.