Supreme Court Rejects Challenge To Biden Admin Coal Waste Rule

The Supreme Court has refused to block a Biden administration rule aimed at preventing legacy toxic waste from closed coal plants from seeping into and contaminating nearby groundwater.

In a brief order, the court denied an emergency request from the East Kentucky Power Cooperative to temporarily halt the rule while ongoing litigation challenging it is resolved, The Hill reported.

The Supreme Court did not provide an explanation for its decision to reject the power cooperative’s petition, and no dissents were noted, the outlet said.

The ruling does not necessarily indicate that the justices believe the rule is lawful; it simply means they are not prepared to block it before lower courts have ruled on the challenges.

The rule in question targets “coal ash,” a byproduct of coal plants containing hazardous substances such as mercury and arsenic. It mandates that coal plants closed before October 19, 2015, take measures to prevent coal ash from leaking out of storage ponds.

 

The East Kentucky co-op asked the court to halt the rule, arguing that it would suffer from “unrecoverable compliance costs” if it did not.

Earlier this week, the nation’s highest court passed up an opportunity to correct a ruling by Hawaii’s Supreme Court that appears to violate Second Amendment interpretations.

In a February ruling, the Hawaii court openly rejected landmark Second Amendment cases that have been decided by the highest court in the country, finding the “spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.”

“In Hawaii, there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public,” the super-blue state court wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas explained in a statement joined by Justice Samuel Alito that fixing the state court’s error “must await another day.”

Thomas, Alito, and Neil Gorsuch criticized the Hawaii court’s decision but stated they could not take up the case at this time. They further explained that the defendant, Christopher Wilson, has yet to stand trial on other charges. Wilson was arrested in 2017 for trespassing on private property while carrying an unlicensed pistol.

“Wilson moved to dismiss only some of his charges, most notably leaving for trial a trespassing charge on which his Second Amendment defense has no bearing,” Thomas wrote in a statement joined by Justice Samuel Alito. “He thus seeks review of an interlocutory order over which we may not have jurisdiction.”

Related Posts

My Wife Was Pulled Over for Speeding

My wife, Sarah, was driving our Honda on Route 35 when a patrol car pulled her over for speeding. She had been driving 78 miles per hour in a 65-mile-per-hour…

Read more

My Upstairs Neighbor Threw Used Tea Bags Onto My Balcony Twice a Day – So I Decided to Teach Him What It Means to Respect Someone Else’s Home

For weeks, my upstairs neighbor, Greg, threw his used tea bags over his balcony twice a day. They landed on mine around 7 a.m. and 9 p.m., staining towels, cushions,…

Read more

What The Court Said About My Lien Eleven Weeks Later, And The Phone Call I Should Not Have Answered

The lien failed from the beginning, surprising everyone who assumed it protected the homeowner. Mechanic’s liens cover unpaid contractors and suppliers, not owner-occupants who already paid every invoice, making the…

Read more

My mother was treated like a maid in the house I bought for her. When I returned after six years overseas, a man opened the door and told me, “If you’re here to clean, the maid is outside.” Then I saw my sixty-two-year-old mother kneeling on the patio, working while the people inside lived like they owned everything. I held her hand and asked one question: “Mom, why are you serving them?”

After six years of working overseas, Natalie returned to Austin hoping to surprise her mother, Martha. Two years earlier, Natalie had bought her a four-bedroom house for $600,000, paying for…

Read more

My Sons Barber Told Me To Check Behind His Ear Until Police Arrived At My House

My nine-year-old son, Ethan, had been getting haircuts at the same barbershop for years. One Saturday, a new barber named Marcus quietly pulled me aside after noticing something behind Ethan’s…

Read more

The Truth She Left Behind

After 36 years of marriage, I lost my wife, Doreen, to cancer. During her final week, while I sat beside her hospital bed, she took my hand and whispered, “Russell,…

Read more

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *