CONTACT: Sarah McBride
Program Coordinator, Media and Public Engagement
smcbride@momscleanairforce.org
February 22, 2024 – Yesterday, the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Good Neighbor Rule, which protects people in downwind states from smog that blows across their borders from polluters in upwind states. Signals are that the Court is leaning towards an abrupt reversal of those vitally important protections.
In response to arguments that industry is as harmed as people’s health, as stated by Justice Kavanaugh, Moms Clean Air Force’s Director and Co-Founder Dominique Browning released the following statement:
“Justice Kavanaugh’s statement yesterday during the Supreme Court hearing to consider motions to stay EPA’s most recent Good Neighbor Rule signals that the Court is leaning toward an abrupt reversal of those vitally important protections. The Good Neighbor Rule helps those of us living downwind from coal plants in states that are dirtying their air—even when we, in our states, have enforced pollution controls. There’s no other way to get our neighbors to clean up their pollution.
“Speaking of the need to balance the protection of people’s health with the protection of industry balance sheets, Kavanaugh claimed: ‘Both sides have irreparable harm, so that’s a wash.’
“That’s a shocking, dismissive, and callous, if not cruel, statement, Justice Kavanaugh. It is impossible to compare claims of ‘harm’ done to the balance sheet of a business—harm that historically has always turned out to be exaggerated—and harm done to a child’s health and well-being.
“All a coal plant operator has to do is turn on their pollution control equipment.
“But children living downwind from that coal plant suffer the damage done by dirty air. They struggle to breathe. They must be rushed to emergency rooms. That coal plant’s pollution harms a child’s lungs, heart, and brain—and that harm can be lifelong. Air pollution is also dangerous to the developing fetus and is linked to premature birth.
“These Good Neighbor protections are in effect now. Filters are in place, but to save a few dollars, many plant operators are not running them fully or at all. The Supreme Court seems poised to take Good Neighbor protections away—in other words, to permit polluters to pollute—just as the warm weather smog season begins. Children are uniquely vulnerable to the damage caused by air pollution. Their hearts beat faster per minute; they take in more air each minute; they are hard-wired to play hard, and they ought to be able to play outside. Smog, ground-level air pollution cooked with heat that is getting more extreme with each summer, is often dangerous enough to keep children inside. Any parent who has watched a child struggle to breathe, in that perilous place of being unable to take in life-giving oxygen, knows we must cherish clean air.
“This isn’t the first time around that Justice Kavanaugh has taken a dismissive attitude towards protecting children’s health (undoubtedly his children are not living downwind from a coal plant). When President Obama’s EPA passed Cross State Air Pollution protections, Kavanaugh, sitting on the DC circuit court, blocked those good neighbor protections. In 2014 the Supreme Court reversed Kavanaugh’s stay, voting 6 to 2 in favor of the Cross-State Air Pollution rule. We’ve come full circle in this particular battle over cleaning up our air.
“The Clean Air Act, passed with bipartisan support, should be treasured as a jewel in the crown of U.S. laws. It was created to protect and enhance the quality of our nation’s air ‘to promote the public health and welfare and the productive capacity of its population.’
“Our children are not only beloved; they are this nation’s future. We protect them because they cannot protect themselves. Such blatant disregard for what is at the beating heart of the Clean Air Act is stunning, and heartless.”