Can you smell the sulfur?

If you live in the Eastern U.S., you’re going to get to smell it plenty.

It must be environmental clusterfuck Friday or something.

The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled today that the Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority when it established the 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule.

Fallout? Big time.

At its most stringent, the regulations covering 28 states in the eastern half of the country, would have required 70 percent reductions in such major pollutants as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide beginning in 2015.

The ruling, along with a court decision issued in February striking down the environmental agency’s rule controlling mercury emissions from power plants, means that virtually all new controls imposed on the electric utility industry by the Bush administration have no force.

“The implications are huge,” said Lisa Heinzerling, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “This is the administration’s major air pollution initiative.”

No shit. As John Walke of the National Resources Defense Counsel notes:

“The Bush administration has failed to achieve a single ounce in reductions of smog, soot, mercury or global warming pollution from power plants.”

You almost have to wonder if somebody in the EPA didn’t KNOW this was going to be found illegal and thereby deliberately propose the rule.