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MICHIGAN v. EPA KAGAN, J., dissenting
natural gas but sometimes switching to oil—to comply with the final rule by meeting qualitative “work practice standards” rather than numeric emissions limits. Id., at 9400–9401. EPA explained that it would be “economically impracticable” for those plants to demonstrate compliance through emissions testing, and that an alternative standard, focused on their adoption of pollution control techniques, would allow them to both reduce emissions and avoid “extra cost.” Id., at 9401. And the list goes on. See, e.g., id., at 9409–9410 (allowing extra year for plants to comply with emissions limits where “source-specific construction, permitting, or labor, procurement or resource challenges” arise); id., at 9417 (describing additional “compliance options”). With all that cost-consideration under its belt, EPA next assessed whether to set beyond-the-floor standards, and here too, as it knew it would, the Agency took costs into account. For the vast majority of coal and oil plants, EPA decided that beyond-the-floor standards would not be “reasonable after considering costs.” Id., at 9331. The Agency set such a standard for only a single kind of plant, and only after determining that the technology needed to meet the more lenient limit would also achieve the more stringent one. See id., at 9393; 76 Fed. Reg. 25046–25047. Otherwise, EPA determined, the market-leader-based standards were enough. Finally, as required by Executive Order and as anticipated at the time of the “appropriate and necessary” finding, EPA conducted a formal cost-benefit analysis of its new emissions standards and incorporated those findings into its proposed and final rules. See id., at 25072–25078; 77 Fed. Reg. 9305–9306, 9424–9432. That analysis estimated that the regulation’s yearly costs would come in at under $10 billion, while its annual measureable benefits would total many times more—between $37 and $90 billion. See id., at 9305–9306; ante, at 4. On the costs
