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Showing Original Post only (View all)Justice Scalia Makes Epic "Cringeworthy" Blunder In Supreme Court Opinion [View all]
Justice Scalia Makes Epic Blunder In Supreme Court Opinion
SAHIL KAPUR APRIL 30, 2014, 6:00 AM EDT
It's not often that a Supreme Court justice makes a factual blunder in a formal opinion.
Legal experts say Justice Antonin Scalia erred in his dissent in the 6-2 decision Tuesday to uphold the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate coal pollution that moves across state lines. The Reagan-appointed jurist argued that the majority's decision was inconsistent with a unanimous 2001 ruling which he mistakenly said shot down EPA efforts to consider costs when setting regulations.
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The problem: the EPA's position in the 2001 case was exactly the opposite. The agency was defending its refusal to consider cost as a counter-weight to health benefits when setting certain air quality standards. It was the trucking industry that wanted the EPA to factor in cost. The 9-0 ruling sided with the EPA. The author of the ruling that Scalia mischaracterized? Scalia himself.
The conservative justice's error was noted by University of California-Berkley law professor Dan Farber, who called it "embarrassing" and a "cringeworthy blunder."
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