美國最高法院阻止奧巴馬限制排放政策

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday blocked one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives, one meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

華盛頓——美國最高法院週一推翻了奧巴馬政府最雄心勃勃的環保措施之一，該措施旨在限制燃煤發電廠汞及其它有毒污染物的排放。

Industry groups and some 20 states challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate the emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into account the punishing costs its regulations would impose.

行業團體及約20個州對美國環境保護局（Environment Protection Agency，簡稱EPA）控制排放的決定提出挑戰，稱該機構沒有考慮其規則會帶來的懲罰性成本。

The Clean Air Act required the regulations to be “appropriate and necessary.” The challengers said the agency had run afoul of that law by deciding to regulate the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis.

《清潔空氣法》(Clean Air Act)要求規則需是“適當和必要的”。挑戰方認爲，環保局在沒有先做出成本效益分析的情況下，就決定控制排放，違反了法律。

The agency responded that it was not required to take costs into account when it made the initial determination to regulate. But the agency added that it did so later in setting emissions standards and that, in any event, the benefits far outweighed the costs.

環保局迴應說，機構在做出要控制排放的初步決定時，無需考慮成本問題。但該機構補充說，在後來制定排放標準時考慮了成本，而且不論如何，收益都遠遠大於成本。

The two sides had very different understandings of the costs and benefits involved. Industry groups said the government had imposed annual costs of $9.6 billion to achieve about $6 million in benefits. The agency said the costs yielded tens of billions of dollars in benefits.

雙方對所涉及的成本和收益有非常不同的理解。行業團體說，政府爲得到約600萬美元的收益，強加了每年高達96億美元的成本。環保局則稱，這些成本產生了數百億美元的收益。

The decision, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 14-46 was a setback for environmentalists.

最高法院對14-46號案、密歇根州訴環境保護局(Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency)的判決對環保人士來說是個挫折。

In the term that ended in June 2014, the justices heard cases on two other sets of environmental regulations — one aimed at limiting power plant pollution that wafts across state lines, the other at cutting planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The E.P.A. won the first case and largely prevailed in the second, though the Supreme Court indicated that it remained prepared to impose limits on the agency’s regulatory authority.

在2014年6月結束的最高法院開庭期裏，大法官受理了有關其他兩組環保規則的案件，一個旨在限制發電廠的污染跨州排放，另一個旨在減少導致地球變暖的溫室氣體的排放。環保局贏了第一個案子，並在第二個案子上取得了很大程度的勝利，雖然最高法院當時曾表示，它仍準備對環保局的控制權做出限制。

Monday’s decision reversed one from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ruled that the agency’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act was reasonable.

最高法院週一的決定推翻了哥倫比亞特區聯邦巡迴上訴法院的判決，該判決裁定，環保局對《清潔空氣法》的解釋是合理的。

“For E.P.A. to focus its ‘appropriate and necessary’ determination on factors relating to public health hazards, and not industry’s objections that emission controls are costly, properly puts the horse before the cart,” Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote for the majority.

巡迴法院法官朱迪斯·W·羅傑斯(Judith W. Rogers)代表多數派意見在判決書上寫道，“EPA把其‘適當和必要的’注意力集中在與公衆健康危害有關的因素上，而不是行業反對控制排放的理由、即控排成本高這個因素上，是合乎道理的做法。”

In dissent, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh said that, in context, the statute required attention to costs “as a matter of common sense, common parlance and common practice.”

法官佈雷特·M·卡瓦納夫(Brett M. Kavanaugh)在反對意見中寫道，從上下文來看，該法律對考慮成本的要求“是常識、俗言與慣例之事”。