The U.S. Supreme Court struck down new rules for America’s biggest air polluters on Monday, dealing a blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to set limits on the amount of mercury, arsenic and other toxins coal-fired power plants can spew into the air, lakes and rivers.
The 5-4 decision was a major setback to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and could leave the agency more vulnerable to legal challenges from industry and Republican-led states to its new carbon pollution rules.
It was also a blow to years of local efforts to clean up dangerous air pollution.
The justices embraced the arguments from the industry and 21 Republican-led states that the EPA rules were prohibitively expensive and amounted to government overreach.
The decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, ruled that the EPA did not reasonably consider the cost factor when drafting regulation.
The Clean Air Act had directed the EPA to create regulations for power plants that were “appropriate and necessary”. The agency did not consider cost when making its decision, the court ruled, but estimated that the cost of its regulation to power plants would be $9.6bn a year.
Scalia was joined by the conservative members of the bench. The dissent, written by Elena Kagan, was supported by Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor.
The landmark decision closes a chapter on a two-decade-long effort to force stricter emissions standards for coal-fired power plants.
The regulation, adopted in 2012, would have affected about 600 coal-fired power plants across the country — many of which are concentrated in the midwest and the south.
It was already going into effect across the country. But Republican governors and power companies challenged the EPA’s authority, saying the agency had mishandled estimates of the cost of the new rules.
The EPA and campaigners have argued that the public health costs posed by the toxic air pollutants outweighed those to utility companies forced to fit new control equipment.
TWITTER REACTS:
[Climate Progress] BREAKING: The Supreme Court Will Allow Coal Plants To Emit Unlimited Mercury: Power plants ... http://t.co/BZIe3hJvjF
South Carolina governor Nikki Haley on Monday called for a Confederate battle flag that has flown on the statehouse grounds for more than 50 years to be removed, in an abrupt about-face as local protesters and national advocates brought intense pressure to bear on the state to make a concrete gesture of healing after the killing of nine African Americans last week inside a Charleston church.
“We are here in a moment of unity in our state, without ill will, to say it’s time to remove the flag from the capitol grounds,” Haley said, speaking in front of dozens of current and former South Carolina officials. “One hundred and fifty years after the end of the civil war, the time has come.”
The call was met with applause and cheering by the audience, which had listened in silence as Haley described a vision of the state sharply at odds with images broadcast around the world over the last week of tearful mourners and an empty-eyed suspect in chains.
Suddenly a symbol that the Republican governor herself, only days earlier, had said was beyond her power to move seemed to be on the verge of removal by a broad bipartisan consensus that took shape with surprising speed.
“For many people in our state, the flag stands for traditions that are noble,” Haley said. “At the same time, for many others in South Carolina, the flag is a deeply offensive symbol, of a brutally oppressive past.”
“My hope is that by removing a symbol that divides us, we can move forward as a state in harmony, and we can honor the nine blessed souls who are now in heaven.”
Haley, who is Indian-American, made reference to her own race and to that of Tim Scott, the African-American junior senator from the state who stood next to her, to say South Carolina had shown its progressiveness.
“I stand in front of you a minority female governor twice elected by the people of South Carolina,” she said.
Haley said the state legislature intended to address the flag issue in an extraordinary session, originally scheduled to finish budget work, to begin Tuesday. If the legislature failed to take up the issue, Haley said, she would call the legislature into emergency session over the summer – a painstaking prospect for members.
Under a 2000 law that moved the flag on capitol grounds from atop the statehouse dome to a Confederate war memorial about 200 feet away, the flag may not again be moved without a two-thirds majority assent of the general assembly. However, state legislators said a court challenge of the 2000 law could vacate the requirement for a supermajority.
Five days after the shooting at Charleston’s historic Emanuel AME church, the city’s mayor, Joe Riley, said the presence of the Confederate battle flag in front of the statehouse “sends mixed messages” and that the symbol of a failed attempt at secession by the pro-slavery southern states should be relegated to “its appropriate historical context”.
Pressure on South Carolina leaders to pull down the flag had mounted, as politicians and activists said it continued to inflame racial tensions in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting. The suspect in the shooting, Dylann Roof, was linked to online manifestos expounding racism accompanied by pictures of him holding the flag.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at South Carolina’s state house in Columbia on Saturday night to support lawmakers’ demands that the Confederate flag be barred from flying on its grounds in the aftermath of the church massacre.
Lindsey Graham, the state’s senior senator and a Republican candidate for president, joined the call for the flag to come down, as a cavalcade of statements from leaders of the party followed the governor’s announcement.
“Today, I am urging that the Confederate Battle Flag be removed from statehouse grounds to an appropriate location,” he said in a statement. “I hope, by removing the flag, we can take another step towards healing and recognition – and a sign that South Carolina is moving forward.”
Graham’s evolution on the issue of what to do with the flag was followed by fellow contenders for the Republican nomination including Scott Walker, who as recently as Sunday said that it would be inappropriate to debate the issue until the victims had been buried.
“I am glad [Haley] is calling for the Confederate flag to come down,” Walkertweeted Monday. “I support her decision.”
The governor had previously said her hands were tied on the flag’s removal, as the state legislature would need to vote to remove the flag by a two-thirds majority.
“I think the state will start talking about that again and we’ll see where it goes,”Haley said on Friday.
A Confederate battle flag was planted atop the South Carolina statehouse in 1962 by white leaders of the legislature opposed to the racial desegregation of public schools enforced by the federal government. In 2000, legislators reached an agreement to move the flag to a Confederate memorial inside capitol grounds.
State Representative Doug Brannon, an author of legislation to be introduced Tuesday to have the flag removed entirely from the capitol, said the bill had ample support among colleagues he had spoken with in the House, but that he had not spoken to any senators.
“The flag of their heritage is fine for them. And their flag of heritage needs to be in a museum,” Brannon said. “The flag that I’m talking about was put up by a bunch of white guys in 1962 in response to desegregation. And that’s not heritage. That’s hate.”
“It eventually will come down,” said state senator Kevin L Bryant, a Republican. “Some say it’s offensive and it needs to come down. Some are saying his great-great-grandfather fought and died in [the civil war], and he wants it to stay up in his honor. It’s going to be a move the legislature takes which, it’s going to be angry folks regardless.
“We’ll have a debate and like I said, I’m torn on it. I respect both views of it.”
On Sunday, the chief executive of eBay, John Donahoe, tweeted: “Yes take it down!” Apple CEO Tim Cook called for “removing the symbols and words” that feed racism.
In the aftermath of the shooting, several Democratic and Republican lawmakers came out against the flag, including former presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Speaking on Friday, President Barack Obama echoed Riley’s sentiment that the flag deserved to be in a museum and not flying at the state capitol. Several Republican presidential candidates refused to back calls for the flag’s removal.
Several South Carolina state senators who had worked alongside shooting victim Clementa Pinckney in the local legislature called for it to be taken down, alongside promises to introduce a bill that would force its removal in the next legislative session.
The resurrected discord over the Confederate flag is just the latest manifestation of a historic wound. It represents the region that seceded from the Union in 1861, in a defense of slavery, which led to years of bloody civil war. It became the source of renewed focus this week, as it was a cornerstone of a manifesto that has been linked to the shooting suspect, Roof.
Unearthed pictures found on a website alongside the manifesto – the author of which has not been confirmed – show Roof proudly holding Confederate flags, or sitting on his car with the flag adorning its roof.
Speaking alongside the mayor at the press conference on Monday, Marlon Kimpson, a Democratic state senator for South Carolina, urged constituents to speak out to elected officials.
“It’s time to end division in this state,” he said. “It’s time to move forward into the 21st century.”
Kimpson, the mayor and other community leaders at the press conference agreed that the flag’s removal would not solve underlying racial divides in South Carolina, Kimpson said, echoing sentiments uttered minutes earlier by Mayor Riley. But those present on Monday seemed to agree that it was a necessary first step.
“The time has come to remove this symbol of hate and division from our state capitol,” said the Rev Nelson Rivers, pastor of the Charity Missionary Baptist church in North Charleston, the neighboring city where an unarmed black man was shot and killed less than three months ago while running away from a white police officer.
A criminal prosecution for murder will be brought over the death of Freddie Grayin Baltimore, the city’s top prosecutor announced on Friday morning.
The announcement came after nearly two weeks of growing anger over Gray’s death, and only hours after state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby received the results of a police investigation.
“Mr Gray’s death was a homicide,” Mosby declared. His arrest was illegal, and his treatment in custody amounted to murder and manslaughter, she said.
Mosby said Gray sustained fatal neck injuries because he was handcuffed and shackled in the back of a police van without a seatbelt after his arrest on 12 April
“To the people of Baltimore: I heard your call for ‘no justice no peace’,” Mosby said at a Baltimore press conference. Praising young people who had taken to the streets to protest over Gray’s death, she said: “I will seek justice on your behalf.
“This is a moment. This is your moment,” said Mosby. “Let’s ensure that we have peaceful and productive rallies that will develop structural and systemic changes for generations to come. You’re at the forefront of this cause. And as young people, our time is now.”
Whoops of joy and cries of “justice” were heard from bystanders as Mosby, a 35-year-old African American woman who has been in the job for less than six months, spoke. At an intersection in west Baltimore that has become the base for demonstrations, cars honked their horns and drivers pumped their fists in the air.
Officer Caesar Goodson – the driver of the police van – was charged with second-degree murder, while charges including manslaughter, assault, and misconduct in public office were brought against five other officers. Goodson, who has refused to cooperate with investigators, faces up to 30 years in prison.
Officer William Porter and Sergeant Alicia D White were charged with manslaughter, assault and misconduct.
Lieutenant Brian Rice, Officer Garrett Miller and Officer Edward Nero were charged with manslaughter, assault, misconduct and false imprisonment.
All six officers involved were charged, and Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said later that five of the six officers were in custody and that she had ordered police commissioner Anthony Batts to suspend all of them from their jobs. They are expected to be arraigned in court later on Friday.
“No one is above the law,” Mosby said.
Gray, 25, was arrested after catching the eye of a senior officer and running away. He was placed in the back of a police transportation wagon and was not placed in a seatbelt, as is required under Baltimore police regulations.
Past prisoners have suffered serious injuries during so-called “rough rides” in Baltimore vehicles.
Mosby said Gray sustained a fatal neck injury while he was handcuffed and shackled inside a police van without a seatbelt.
She said Gray’s arrest was illegal, since the knife in his pocket was not a switchblade and so was legal under Maryland law. In any case, the knife was not discovered until after he was arrested, Mosby said.
The announcement marked an extraordinary turn in the case, which has led to civil unrest in the city and reinvigorated discussions around poverty, discrimination and injustice suffered by African Americans across the United States.
Protests over Gray’s death turned to rioting on Monday, as young people – many of whom accuse Baltimore police of systematic brutality and mistreatment – clashed with officers. Shops were looted and buildings were burned. More than 200 people were arrested.
Protesters have been calling for all six officers involved in the arrest to be charged since Gray’s death on 19 April.
“This is a turning point in the world. This is a turning point in America,” shouted Jay Morrison of the YMC community coalition, part of the small group of Baltimore residents who assembled to hear Mosby’s announcement.
Mosby said she came from five generations of police officers, and that the charges against these six officers should in no way damage the relationship between police and prosecutors in Baltimore.
Her announcement came as the city braced for two move waves of protests on Friday and Saturday.
Barack Obama said it was “absolutely vital” the truth about what happened to Gray came out.
“It is my practice not to comment on the legal processes involved,” the US president said at a press conference. “That would not be appropriate. But I can tell you that justice needs to be served. All the evidence needs to be presented. Those individuals who are charged obviously are also entitled to due process and rule of law.
“So I want to make sure that our legal system runs the way it should. The justice department and our new attorney general [Loretta Lynch] is in communications with Baltimore officials to make sure that any assistance we can provide on the investigation is provided.”
He added: “What I think the people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth. That’s what people around the country expect.”
In a brief statement, Rawlings-Blake, the mayor, said: “There will be justice for Mr Gray, there will be justice for his family, and there will be justice for the people of Baltimore,” she said in a brief statement.
Rawlings-Blake said she was “sickened and heartbroken” by details of the charges against the officers.
“No one in our city is above the law,” she said. “Justice must apply to all of us equally.”
The mayor said most police officers served with “honour and distinction”, but said: “To those of you who wish to engage in brutality, misconduct, racism and corruption, let me clear: there is no place in the Baltimore city police department for you.”
The decision to charge all six officers caught many by surprise. Baltimore City police had only handed the findings of their own investigation into Gray’s death to Mosby’s office on Thursday.
Flanked by members of her own investigative team, Mosby said she decided to press charges after “independently verifying” all facts provided by the police department, and stated: “From day one, I also sent my own investigators to the scene.
“What we received from the police department yesterday we already had,” said Mosby.
Before her press conference, the Baltimore police officers’ union asked her to appoint a special independent prosecutor for the investigation into Gray’s death.
“All death is tragic. And death associated with interaction with police is both shocking and frightening to the public,” Gene Ryan wrote.
“As tragic as this situation is, none of the officers involved are responsible for the death of Mr Gray. To the contrary, at all times, each of the officers diligently balanced the obligations to protect Mr Gray and discharged their duties to protect the public.”
Despite claiming full faith in Mosby’s professional integrity, Ryan cited “very deep concerns about the many conflicts of interest presented by your office conducting an investigation in this case”.
Ryan specifically called into question Mosby’s personal and professional relationship with the Gray family attorney William Murphy.
Murphy was among Mosby’s biggest campaign contributors last year, donating the maximum individual amount allowed, $4,000, in June. He was also on Mosby’s transition team after the election.
But after announcing the charges on Friday, Mosby said she would not turn the case over to a special prosecutor.
For those outside the steps of the War Memorial Building, where Mosby held her press conference on Friday morning, the decision to prosecute was seen as nothing other than a move for justice and a potential turning point for the city recovering from widespread rioting and looting in the wake of Gray’s death.
