''Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc.'', 531 U.S. 457 (2001), was a case decided by the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in which the Environmental Protection Agency's National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for regulating

ozone Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , breaking down in the lo ...

and particulate matter was challenged by the

American Trucking Association The American Trucking Associations (ATA), founded in 1933, is the largest national trade association for the Trucking industry in the United States, trucking industry. ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in ...

, along with other private

companies A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...

and the states of

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, and

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...

. The Supreme Court faced the issues of whether the statute had impermissibly delegated legislative power to the agency and whether the Administrator of the EPA, Christine Todd Whitman, could consider the costs of implementation in setting national ambient

air quality Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

standards.

Background

Section 109(b)(1) of the Clean Air Act instructed the EPA to set "ambient air quality standards the attainment and maintenance of which in the judgment of the Administrator, based on hecriteria ocuments of Section 108and allowing an adequate margin of safety, are requisite to protect the

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

." The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had decided that the standard making procedure delegated by Congress to the EPA to set air quality was an unconstitutional delegation in contravention of Article I, Section I, of the US Constitution because the EPA had interpreted the statute to provide "no intelligible principle" to guide the agency's exercise of authority. It also found that the EPA could not consider the economic cost of implementing a national ambient air quality standard.

Decision

In an opinion written by

Justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Court of Appeals' decision. The Court affirmed that the text of Section 109(b) unambiguously barred cost considerations from the NAAQS-setting process. The Court wrote, "Whether the statute delegates legislative power is a question for the courts, and an agency’s voluntary self-denial has no bearing upon the answer.” The Court determined that the scope of discretion that Section 109(b)(1) allowed was well within the outer limits of nondelegation precedents. The Court concluded this based on prior holdings, noting it had only twice found an intelligible principle lacking in a statutory delegation: one which contained "literally no guidance for the exercise of discretion," and the other "conferred authority to regulate the entire economy on the basis of no more precise a standard than stimulating the economy by assuring 'fair competition.'" Consequently, the Court remanded the case for the Court of Appeals to reinterpret the statute that would avoid a delegation of legislative power.

Concurrences

Justice

Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1 ...

wrote a separate concurrence. He was not sure that the intelligible principle criterion served to prevent all cessions of legislative power. He believed that there are cases in which the principle itself is intelligible but the significance of the delegated decision is simply too great for the decision to be called anything other than legislative. He stated that he would be willing to reconsider the delegation precedents in the future to determine whether delegation jurisprudence has strayed too far from Founders' understanding of separation of powers. The Court also held that EPA’s implementation policy constituted a final agency action subject to judicial review and that two statutory provisions for ozone, Subpart I and Subpart 2, were seemingly in conflict and EPA must reconcile these provisions on remand. Justice John Paul Stevens also wrote a separate concurrence, which was joined by

Justice Souter David Hackett Souter ( ; born September 17, 1939) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1990 until his retirement in 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the sea ...

.''Whitman'', 531 U.S. at 487-490 (Stevens, J., concurring). They both agreed with the Court that Section 109(b)(1) did grant the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to promulgate national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) but they wanted to acknowledge that the power delegated to the EPA was "legislative power" which the majority does not agree with. They support this claim by defining how to properly characterize governmental power which should depend on the nature of the power not on the identity of the person using the power.

References

Sources

External links