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Carter Conboy and the Adirondack Mountain Club Successfully Challenge the Clean Air Mercury Rule
Carter Conboy represented the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) in a successful challenge of the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), an EPA Rule from the Bush Administration. The case was venued in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. Carter Conboy Attorneys Leah Walker Casey and Edward D. Laird, Jr., represented ADK in the case. The challenged Rule established a cap-and-trade program that would have allowed polluters to purchase pollution credits and continue to emit mercury rather than requiring across the board reductions of mercury emission from all polluters. Carter Conboy and ADK argued that the Bush Administration rule making ignored the hard data documenting damage wrought by mercury.
In February 2008, the D.C. Circuit agreed that the CAMR was illegal in that it contradicted the Clean Air Act. The EPA and the utility industry appealed to the United States Supreme Court. ADK, together with several states as well as environmental and public health advocacy groups, submitted a brief opposing the appeal. The Obama Administration withdrew the EPA’s portion of the appeal.
On February 23, 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided against hearing the appeal of the February 2008 D.C. Circuit decision which declared the CAMR invalid. Now the EPA must develop rules requiring power plants to install the best technology available to reduce mercury emissions. The utility industry already has signaled that it will challenge the rules, even though they have not yet been written.
Ms. Casey concentrates primarily in the areas of appellate practice and commercial litigation.
Mr. Laird is a trial attorney who concentrates his legal practice on the defense of product liability, transportation, medical malpractice, and other liability claims.
