In an amicus brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court in West Virginia v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sean Hecht and Berkeley Law's Ted Lamm argue Congress wrote the Clean Air Act to achieve an ambitious but clearly stated goal—promotion of public health and welfare through the protection of air quality—and it empowered EPA to achieve this goal by crafting and enforcing a set of emission reduction standards covering all major sources and types of air pollution. Congress did not limit standards in Section 111 of the Act to those that can be applied “to and at” individual sources.

Their client, Tom Jorling, served as lead minority (Republican) staff on the Senate committee that drafted and negotiated the pivotal 1970 amendments that form today’s law, and wrote the first definitive treatise explaining the Clean Air Act’s provisions in the early 1970s. Subsequently, Jorling implemented the Act in high-level positions in federal and state government and the private sector throughout his long career.

Download the brief. 

Read a blog post.