E.P.A.'s authority on air rules wins supreme court's backing

  • 27/02/2001

The US Supreme Court today unanimously and decisively rejected an industry attack on the Clean Air Act in one of the court's most important environmental rulings in years. In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court ruled that in setting national air quality standards, the Environmental Protection Agency must consider only the requirements of public health and safety and may not engage in the cost-benefit analysis that a coalition of industry groups sought to import into the statute.