Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc.

Infobox SCOTUS case
Litigants=Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc.
ArgueDate=November 7
ArgueYear=2000
DecideDate=February 27
DecideYear=2001
FullName=Christine Todd Whitman, Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency, et al.
v.
American Trucking Associations, Inc., et al.
OralArgument=http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2000/2000_99_1257/argument/
USVol=531
USPage=457
Citation=
Prior=
Subsequent=
Holding=The Clean Air Act properly delegated legislative power to the Environmental Protection Agency, but the EPA cannot consider implementation costs in setting primary and secondary national ambient air quality standards.
SCOTUS=1994-2005
Majority=Scalia
JoinMajority=Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Ginsburg
Concurrence=Stevens
JoinConcurrence=Souter
Concurrence2=Breyer
Concurrence3=Thomas
NotParticipating=
LawsApplied=Section 109 of the Clean Air Act (CAA)

"Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc.", ussc|531|457|2001, was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in which the Environmental Protection Agency's National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for regulating ozone and particulate matter was challenged by the American Trucking Association along with other private companies and the States of Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia.

The Supreme Court faced the issues of whether the statute had impermissibly delegated legislative power to the agency, and whether the Administrator of the EPA, Christine Todd Whitman, could consider the costs of implementation in setting national ambient air quality standards.

Section 109(b)(1) of the CAA instructed the EPA to set "ambient air quality standards the attainment and maintenance of which in the judgment of the Administrator, based on [the] criteria [documents of Section 108] and allowing an adequate margin of safety, are requisite to protect the public health."

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had decided that the standard making procedure delegated by Congress to the EPA to set air quality was an unconstitutional delegation in contravention of Article I, Section I of the U.S. Constitution because the EPA had interpreted the statute to provide "no intelligible principle" to guide the agency's exercise of authority. It also found that the EPA could not consider the cost of implementing a national ambient air quality standard.

In an opinion written by Justice Scalia the Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Court of Appeals' decision.

The Court affirmed that the text of Section 109(b) unambiguously barred cost considerations from the NAAQS-setting process.

The court then held, " [w] hether the statute delegates legislative power is a question for the courts, and an agency’s voluntary self-denial has no bearing upon the answer,” and that the scope of discretion Section 109(b)(1) allowed was well within the outer limits of nondelegation precedents.

The court remanded the case for the Court of Appeals to reinterpret the statute that would avoid a delegation of legislative power.

Justice Thomas wrote a separate concurrence. He was not sure that the intelligible principle criterion served to prevent all cessions of legislative power. Thomas believed that there are cases in which the principle itself is intelligible and yet the significance of the delegated decision is simply too great for the decision to be called anything other than legislative. He stated that he would be willing to reconsider the delegation precedents in the future to determine whether delegation jurisprudence has strayed too far from Founders' understanding of separation of powers.

Justice Stevens wrote a separate concurrence joined by Justice Souter.

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 531

Further reading

*cite book |chapter=Lawmaking by Administrative Agencies |title=The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom |last=Levy |first=Robert A. |authorlink=Robert A. Levy |coauthors=Mellor, William H. |year=2008 |publisher=Sentinel |location=New York |isbn=9781595230508 |pages=67–88

External links

* [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=531&page=457 Full text opinion from Findlaw.com]
* [http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2000/2000_99_1257/ Summary of case from OYEZ]