Please suck on this, Charles and David Koch - from politicususa.com:
In a complicated ruling today, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Koch Brothers by not overturning the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gasses.
The utility industry, the Chamber of Commerce, and 13 states led by Texas argued that the EPA does not have the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but by a vote of 7-2, the court ruled that the EPA does have the authority to regulate emissions at facilities that already release pollutants.
The EPA declared victory in a statement, “Today is a good day for all supporters of clean air and public health and those concerned with creating a better environment for future generations. We are pleased that the Court’s decision is consistent with our approach to focus on other Clean Air Act tools like the Clean Power Plan to limit carbon pollution as part of the President’s Climate Action Plan.”
Meanwhile, Justice Scalia grumbled that the EPA got almost everything they wanted out of the ruling.
http://www.politicususa.com/...
This was a major white whale for the Koch brothers - after many years and millions and millions of dollars, the Supreme Court has conclusively told them to eff off. It is especially gratifying to have this ruling come down so soon after the EPA set a goal of 30% reduction in greenhouse gases. The evil oligarchs now have nothing to do but cry into their money.
Update 1:
Koch Industries, one of America's top ten polluters, has been trying to kill the EPA since at least the mid-nineteen eighties, when they launched the Mercatus Center "think tank", as detailed in this great New Yorker article:
http://www.newyorker.com/...
So these a-holes have been fighting this war for three decades! A small excerpt from the article:
The Wall Street Journal has called the Mercatus Center “the most important think tank you’ve never heard of,” and noted that fourteen of the twenty-three regulations that President George W. Bush placed on a “hit list” had been suggested first by Mercatus scholars. Fink told the paper that the Kochs have “other means of fighting [their] battles,” and that the Mercatus Center does not actively promote the company’s private interests. But Thomas McGarity, a law professor at the University of Texas, who specializes in environmental issues, told me that “Koch has been constantly in trouble with the E.P.A., and Mercatus has constantly hammered on the agency.” An environmental lawyer who has clashed with the Mercatus Center called it “a means of laundering economic aims.” The lawyer explained the strategy: “You take corporate money and give it to a neutral-sounding think tank,” which “hires people with pedigrees and academic degrees who put out credible-seeming studies. But they all coincide perfectly with the economic interests of their funders.”
Sorry, Chuck & Dave - you just lost.