From a posting this afternoon in the Scientific American website:
The Supreme Court today denied an industry request to reconsider a lower court ruling against a Bush administration rule on mercury emissions from power plants.
The Supreme Court declined to overturn a ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, District of Columbia.
In that ruling the lower Court had held that a section of the Clean Air Act required that the EPA regulate mercury emissions from power plants in a strict manner. The Bush administration had held that under a "cap and trade" system, which they supported, it was not required that individual plants be held to strict standards, but that mercury emissions could be traded between plants, and that therefore a lower standard was permissible. The lower Court ruled against the Bush position; the decision not to take the case by SCOTUS means that the more stringent, per plant rules remain in effect.
This is a win for the Obama administration, as they had requested that the Court drop its review, and that the Bush appeal be dismissed.
The appeal had been requested by the Utility Air Regulatory Group, a trade association made up of electric utilities, among other trade groups.
It will take some time, according to reports, for the EPA to put rules in place requiring strict limits on mercury emissions, so the fight isn't quite over yet. According to the same report:
The agency will now embark on several years of MACT rulemaking for power plants with no mercury regulations in place in the meantime, Zeugin said. When the final rule is released, "I'm sure UARG will challenge EPA's authority to do any of it," he said.
But, at least things are headed in the right direction.