Off the agenda: The Supreme Court won’t hear appeals from BP and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. over Clean Water Act fines for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The justices this morning let stand a lower court ruling that said the owners of the blown-out Macondo well could not avoid federal fines for the spill by blaming another company’s failed equipment. As The Associated Press reports, the companies had argued that the oil had not leaked from the well itself, but from the broken underwater pipe that connected the well to the rig owned by Transocean Ltd. That riser was ripped apart when the burning rig sank. The companies argued that the rig’s owners should be the only companies to pay. A district judge and a federal appeals court rejected that argument.
Industrial win: A narrowly divided Supreme Court struck down federal clean air regulations this morning on coal- and oil-fired power plants that have been on the drawing board for a quarter century. USA Today reports the 5-4 ruling blocks the Environmental Protection Agency from jump-starting new rules designed to reduce the amount of dangerous mercury and other toxins that pollute the nation’s air, at an unknown net cost to power plants and consumers. The ruling is a major defeat for the Obama administration, which had been on a roll at the high court on environmental matters lately. It was a victory for a coalition of 20 states, including Louisiana, along with major electric utilities and coal producers. Read the full story.
Here we go again: The Supreme Court will dive back into the fight over the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas, a decision that presages tighter limits on affirmative action in higher education. The justices announced this morning that they will hear for a second time the case of a white woman who was denied admission to the university’s flagship Austin campus. The conservative-leaning federal appeals court in New Orleans has twice upheld the university’s admissions process, including in a ruling last year that followed a Supreme Court order to reconsider Abigail Fisher’s case. She is a graduate of LSU. The Associated Press has the full story.
