Coupled with a disinvestment in air quality monitoring in the region, Adirondack Council Executive Director Raul Aguirre said the ruling “has the potential to unravel decades of critical conservation measures.”

Though Whiteface Mountain Field Station Science Manager Scott McKim said he has not yet seen any local impact of the SCOTUS ruling in the data he collects at the summit of Whiteface Mountain, Adirondack Council Communications Director John Sheehan said its impact will likely take time to play out and will ebb and flow with the wind. Sheehan said environmentalists are unhappy the court is impeding this portion of the EPA’s Clean Air Act.

The Good Neighbor Rule’s future as a whole is in jeopardy, too, as a lawsuit led by coal-reliant states — as well as power plant companies and the steel industry — seeks to have it thrown out. In the meantime, the Supreme Court said the rule will not be enforced while it plays out in lower courts. Sheehan said this could possibly take years.

The stalling of this rule means smokestack pollution can cross state lines by wind unregulated again. The rule has made “upwind” coal states to the southwest of New York reduce air pollution heading into “downwind” states like New York. Under the rule, if a state did not create an adequate plan to regulate its power plants, the federal government would create one for it.

When the EPA set new, stricter ozone standards in 2015, this triggered a need for new state plans. Twenty-three of these state plans were deemed inadequate by the EPA in 2022 and it moved to create a single plan for all 23 states. Several of these states — like Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — sued the EPA in response, with 21 of the states arguing that they did not contribute to ozone pollution over state lines, though the EPA found all 23 states contributed to this pollution significantly.

“They’re generally states that have been reluctant to regulate their own pollution internally, opting instead to allow their waste to be dumped on their neighbors,” Sheehan said.

The coal companies and states complained that this was government overreach designed to put the power plants out of business. They said the EPA’s state plans would cost the energy companies billions in tech upgrades to power plants — “irreparable harm,” according to the majority opinion of the Supreme Court. They argued the rule could affect the reliability of the electric grid.

The EPA and the state of New York have argued that the rule cut air pollution and would save lives.

In 2016, the Trump administration said it wouldn’t enforce the Good Neighbor Rule. The Adirondack Council sued the government in an effort to force them to enforce it. But this took several years, and an awful lot of pollution fell in the meantime, Sheehan said. He believes this caused premature deaths or illnesses.

Sheehan said this recent ruling was frustrating. Environmentalists have relied on the Clean Air Act for 40 years now. The ruling was unanimous back then.

“Why this issue became something that this court decided it had to tackle is something that only this court can answer,” Sheehan said. “There was no controversy. Only in the minds of those who did not like regulation.”

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“A win for polluters”

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The EPA’s rule change related to ozone, but also regulates nitrous oxide, an ozone precursor and a contributor to acid rain.

The Adirondacks have seen signs of improvement after 30 years of air pollution regulation reducing acid rain.

Brendan Wiltse, senior research scientist at Paul Smith’s College’s Adirondack Watershed Institute said there were “significant shifts” in the chemistry of Adirondack lakes during the worst era of acid rain, to the point where sensitive lakes could not support fish, and saw decreases in their zooplankton and phytoplankton populations.

After decades of unregulated smokestack pollution rendered some Adirondack lakes too acidic to support complex life, fish have been seen in these water bodies again in recent years.

But Adirondack Council representatives worry this progress could be reversed.

“Deregulation of polluters, coupled with a loss of compliance monitoring, could undo the progress New York has made in the fight against acid rain damage from other states,” Sheehan wrote in a statement.

New York Congressman Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, described the SCOTUS decision as “a win for polluters and a loss for everyone else.”

Tonko served as president of New York’s Energy Research and Development Authority prior to being elected to Congress.

“The court’s decision to allow them to continue to pollute is irresponsible,” he said in a statement.

“The court is really backing the fossil fuel industry in this case,” Sheehan said. “It all seems very political, almost none of it based on science. And that’s the most troubling part. … They’re opting for deregulation rather than allowing the federal government and the scientists that its hired to run these programs do their jobs.”

The June 27 SCOTUS decision was contested, a 5-4 ruling. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The ruling was made mostly down party lines.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that the EPA did not explain its rejection of states’ plans properly. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch argued that the states are likely to win the case in the lower courts.

Liberal Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she doubted that would happen, calling this assumption “underdeveloped.”

The EPA said it was “disappointed” in the ruling stalling the Good Neighbor Rule. It had predicted the Good Neighbor Rule would bring a 50% reduction from 2021 to 2027 in smog pollution over state lines, an estimated reduction in 1,300 premature deaths a year — and easier breathing for people with asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

The EPA has said power plant emissions dropped by 18% last year in the 10 states where it has been allowed to enforce its rule. These emissions can cause asthma, lung disease and premature death — especially for the elderly, immunocompromised people and children.

“I am hopeful the federal government will prevail, but the Chevron decision made that harder to predict,” Sheehan said.

On the same day it ruled on the Good Neighbor Rule, the Supreme Court overruled the long-standing and often-cited Chevron doctrine, giving courts more power to interpret ambiguous parts of laws over federal agencies. The dissent in this 6-3 decision said this will cause a major disruption in countless regulations protecting the public.

Sheehan said this decision could make things worse as federal regulations can now be undone by courts that don’t like how lawmakers justified their rule-making.

“Previously, the Supreme Court always gave deference to regulatory agencies … and only really interfered if they felt something unconstitutional occurred. In this case, they interfered directly with the regulatory process by saying the court can substitute its own judgement,” Sheehan said. “This really makes it easier for a politically-minded judge in a lower court to throw out federal regulations that are protecting us from acid rain, smog, soot particles, mercury, all sorts of pollutants.”

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Monitoring

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Two years ago, the EPA announced it was cutting funding to air quality monitoring stations, including in the Adirondacks. New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the senate majority leader, was able to restore most of the funding in the Inflation Reduction Act.

“Even with that support, some important (Clean Air Science and Trends Network) monitoring sites will only continue if private funding sources emerge,” Sheehan said in a statement.

This winter, the EPA told Northeast states that it was cutting funding for the Long-Term Monitoring Program that had been testing 50 lakes monthly for acid rain-related chemical and biological changes since the mid-1980s.

“The EPA is assuming that acid rain is a a problem of the past that will never come back,” Aguirre said in a statement.

Sheehan said this lake testing has provided the Council with long-term data they use to lobby the government to reduce pollution and has even helped them win lawsuits against the government or energy companies when they haven’t enforced or followed anti-pollution laws.

“This has been a very valuable resource for us,” he said.

While Aguirre said most states are dismantling their air monitoring equipment, New York is trying to find funding to keep it running, and is scrambling to replace this money. Sheehan said Schumer was in Albany last week, asking the federal government to put more money into the research.

“It is clear greater federal support is needed to maintain New York’s environmental recovery,” Tonko said.

Still, Sheehan said if air quality monitoring is funded, that just puts data to the harm being done to the environment if thinks like the Good Neighbor Rule aren’t enforced.

“We won’t know how much pollution is falling on us until we start to see lakes and forests dying again. That’s too late,” Tonko said. “We won’t have the proof needed to stop the polluters in court. The fossil fuel industry would be off the hook entirely.”

“We support the EPA’s decision to spend more money on air pollution monitoring in urban areas; it is smart, necessary and needed. But it shouldn’t come at the cost of maintaining long-term monitoring and research in our most sensitive natural and rural areas across the Northeast,” Aguirre said in a statement. “We can, and must, do the necessary research in both areas.”

Tonko agreed that the United States can afford to do both.

“The federal Acid Rain Program has been the most effective and least costly federal pollution control program in American history,” he said. “The cost/benefit studies EPA submitted to Congress show that every one dollar spent controlling air pollution brings back more than $70 in public health and environmental benefits.”

Sheehan said he hopes Congress can correct this funding issue, but he said that takes a cooperative Congress, adding that the future will be determine by the outcome of the nationwide elections in November.