With the repeal of the endangerment finding, the Environmental Protection Agency looks to be banking on ultimately convincing the Supreme Court to rethink its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, the decision which justices established that greenhouse gases met the definition of pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Bracewell’s Jeff Holmstead, who led the EPA’s air office during the George W. Bush administration, told Law360, “They’re definitely swinging for the fences here.”
He added that if the Supreme Court were to uphold the EPA’s reasoning that its endangerment authority under Section 202(a) of the CAA doesn’t apply to GHGs, it could effectively prevent the agency from regulating GHG emissions under the statute in the future.
