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Administrative Law Keyed to Cass
Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, Inc.
Citation:
556 U.S. 208 (2009)Facts
Petitioners operate large power plants that use cooling water intake structures extracting water from nearby sources, killing approximately 3.4 billion aquatic organisms annually through impingement and entrainment. After nearly thirty years of case-by-case permitting, the EPA promulgated Phase II regulations establishing national performance standards requiring most facilities to reduce impingement mortality by 80 to 95 percent and entrainment by 60 to 90 percent from baseline calculations. The EPA expressly declined to mandate closed-cycle cooling systems, which could achieve up to 98 percent reduction, because the cost would be approximately $3.5 billion annually compared to $389 million for the adopted standards, and would reduce electricity output by 2.4 to 4.0 percent. The regulations permitted site-specific variances where costs are significantly greater than benefits. Over 500 facilities accounting for 53 percent of the nation’s electric power generating capacity fall within Phase II’s scope, removing over 214 billion gallons of water daily.
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