PLF attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich discussing EPA's CO2 endangerment case on Cato Institute panel March 1

February 28, 2012 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

PLF environmental law attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich is attending oral argument today and tomorrow in United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in a series of consolidated cases, including Pacific Legal Foundation v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in which various entities (there are 67 different petitioners) are challenging the EPA’s finding that CO2 (carbon dioxide) constitutes a “pollutant” subject to EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act.  (Carbon dioxide, among other things, is the main gas that we breathe out, and what all plant life relies upon in order to survive and flourish.) 

PLF’s challenge centers around the procedures EPA used–or, more accurately in this case, failed to use–in passing the regulation.  Specifically, EPA procedures require that EPA submit its proposed rules to an independent Science Advisory Board (SAB).  The job of the SAB is to review the validity of the scientific basis upon which such regulations are based.  With the CO2 endangerment rule, a regulation that is likely to have a more significant impact on regulated entities and upon the economy than any other rule promulgated by the EPA in the past, EPA bypassed the SAB completely.  PLF’s suit, then, challenges the validity of the final rule by arguing that EPA did not follow the correct procedures.

Following oral argument, on Thursday, March 1, the Cato Institute will hold a panel discussion of the CO2 endangerment case and of today’s and tomorrow’s oral argument.  PLF attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich will be on the panel, along with lead attorneys on the other consolidated cases and with Cato Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Patrick J. Michaels.  To attend the event in person, please register by tomorrow at noon.  If you cannot attend in person, PLF will post any video/audio/ transcripts made available by Cato.