What Price Pollution?

In one of the most important environmental rulings in years, the U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday that federal regulators can’t put a price on the safety of the air people breathe.

In a unanimous opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia dealt a blow to big business polluters, writing that the Clean Air Act "unambiguously bars cost considerations" from its standards.

In other words, reports CBS News Correspondent Diana Olick, companies must pay whatever it costs to stop air pollution, and the EPA may not weigh cost factors when considering pollution rules.

The justices also ruled against arguments that the EPA took too much lawmaking power from Congress when it set tougher standards for ozone and soot in 1997.

However, in a complex ruling, the court ordered the EPA to reconsider the standards it set for ozone, saying the agency's interpretation of ozone rules — a section of the Clean Air Act — was unreasonable.

The EPA had argued that one section of the Clean Air Act, which limits EPA's authority to establish ozone regulations, could essentially be ignored because the section was out of date. The court held that the EPA's argument was flawed — and "astonishing."

"We therefore find the EPA's implementation policy to be unlawful," Scalia wrote. "It is left to the EPA to develop a reasonable interpretation" of the ozone standards.

Nonetheless, environmentalists — who argue the costs of implementing the latest standards pale in comparison to the health-related costs of pollution — hailed the ruling as a sweeping victory.

"It sends a very strong message to industry and the Bush administration that the Supreme Court is not going to limit an agency's ability to protect public health and the environment," said Karen Hopfl-Harris of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Industry, however, argues that the clean air rules hurt not just businesses, but consumers and workers as well.

Ed Warren argued for the Trucking Association that the EPA didn't consider the damaging costs of clean air standards to business and the U.S. economy.

"Ultimately you know industry pays in the first instance but the public pays in the second instance," Warren said.

Tuesday's court defeat won't stop industry's political effort to alter the pollution rules. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which backed the losing side in Whitman v. American Trucking Association, is already preparing to go back to Congress to fight the standards, an effort that could bear fruit in a Republican-controlled Congress and White House.

Business groups that long have chafed under the clean-air law argued that the EPA was setting standards without clear criteria and without considering the financial costs of complying with them.

Government lawyers said the EPA considers compliance costs in deciding how states will try to meet the clean-air standards, and the law is intended to drive the creation of new technology for doing so.

The Clinton administration also argued that the nation's air is cleaner than when the Clean Air Act was adopted. In two studies, the EPA found that standards set in the 1990s prevent 38,000 deaths a year and 95,000 cases of bronchitis and save 7 million lost work days.

A federal appeals court had ruled that the EPA went too far in adopting new standards in 1997 to reduce smog and soot, but rejected industry arguments that the EPA had to consider cost impact when making those standards.

The Supreme Court Tuesday decided the appeals court was right in ruling the EPA could not consider costs in setting air-quality standards, but wrong in saying the agency unlawfully usurped Congress' authority.

All nine justices agreed on the result of the ruling, although sometimes for different reasons.

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