The Environmental Protection Agency won’t be following a Thursday federal appeals court decision that said the agency did not have to account for coal job losses in implementing its regulations.
“President Trump’s EPA will take the economic and job impacts of its proposed regulations into account consistent with its statutory requirements, regardless of the outcome of this particular case,” said EPA spokeswoman Amy Graham.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., reversed a lower court’s decision last year requiring that the agency do the coal job reporting. The federal appeals court ruled Thursday that lawsuits cannot force the EPA to conduct such studies.
“A court is ill-equipped to supervise” such a “complex process,” the three-judge appeals court panel ruled on Thursday. The Clean Air Act does not allow lawsuits to force jobs studies, it continued.
“This statutory language, in our view, does not impose on the EPA a specific and discreet duty,” the decision said. “Rather, Section 321(a) — when read as a whole — imposes on the EPA a broad, open-ended statutory mandate.”
The lawsuit at the center of the case was brought by coal giant Murray Energy to force EPA to conduct the coal jobs study.
Bob Murray, the company’s CEO, is a big supporter of President Trump. The judges on the appeals court panel were appointed by former President Barack Obama.
