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外文期刊>Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law
>SAVING OBAMACARE DID NOT BAKE THE EARTH: APPLYING THE SUPREME COURT'S KING V. BURWELL FRAMEWORK TO THE CONFLICTING AMENDMENTS AT THE HEART OF THE EPA'S CLEAN POWER PLAN
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SAVING OBAMACARE DID NOT BAKE THE EARTH: APPLYING THE SUPREME COURT'S KING V. BURWELL FRAMEWORK TO THE CONFLICTING AMENDMENTS AT THE HEART OF THE EPA'S CLEAN POWER PLAN
In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in King v. Burwell in 2015, there was widespread commentary and scholarship about what it meant for resolving statutory interpretation questions and speculation that it might pose a threat to the lawfulness of the Environmental Protection Agency's ("EPA") Clean Power Plan ("CPP"). The extensive commentary and scholarship has not provided an easy to use structure for understanding how the Court reached its decision in King that can be applied to King-like statutory interpretation questions in the future. This Note addresses this absence in the literature by developing a three-step process for understanding the Court's approach to the statutory interpretation question in King and applies it to one of the statutory interpretation questions—how to handle the conflicting Clean Air Act ("CAA") §lll(d) amendments—at the heart of the ongoing CPP litigation. This analysis establishes that the CPP likely can survive review on this statutory interpretation question under the three-step process the Court used in King. King involved a question of whether the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") properly extended the use of tax credits to purchase health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("PPACA") to federally-run exchanges. To resolve this question, the Court first eschewed the traditionally deferential Chevron v. Nat. Res. Def. Council framework for answering questions of statutory interpretation because it was a question of "economic and political significance" and it was not a question for the IRS. Second, the Court determined that the relevant language in the PPACA was ambiguous. Third, the Court found that the broad structure of the PPACA necessitated finding in favor of the government and allowing the use of the tax credits on federal exchanges in order to ensure that the PPACA functioned as Congress intended. The CPP, which is currently being reviewed in the D.C. Circuit of Appeals and is likely to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, is being challenged as unlawful for many reasons. One of the challenges involves the conflicting §lll(d) amendments to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990—one of which would prohibit EPA's CPP regulations and one of which would require EPA to take such action. Applying the above three-step process to this statutory interpretation question reveals that the second Supreme Court decision to find President Obama's signature domestic legislative achievement—the PPACA—lawful likely did not spell the end of the president's signature domestic regulatory achievement—the CPP—to reduce the carbon emissions that cause climate change. At Step One of King, the question is likely deserving of Chevron deference because it is a question that requires EPA's expertise in developing carbon regulations and interpreting the CAA and it is at most a question of economic, but not political, significance. In the unlikely event that the courts decide that EPA is undeserving of Chevron deference and proceed to King Step Two, the courts are likely to find that §lll(d) is facially ambiguous. At King Step Three, the broad structure of the CAA likely requires finding in favor of EPA because allowing EPA to regulate carbon emissions under §lll(d) is necessary for ensuring that EPA can regulate non-criteria, non-hazardous air pollutants in order to protect public health and the environment as is the purpose of the CAA.
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