Page:Michigan v. EPA.pdf/39

 Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015)

17

KAGAN, J., dissenting

have said, sensible regulation requires careful scrutiny of the burdens that potential rules impose. See supra, at 6– 7. But in ordering its regulatory process, EPA knew it would have the opportunity to consider costs in one after another of that rulemaking’s stages—in setting the level of floor standards, in providing a range of options for plants to meet them, in deciding whether or where to require limits beyond the floor, and in finally completing a formal cost-benefit analysis. See 65 Fed. Reg. 79830–79831; supra, at 9–15. Given that context, EPA reasonably decided that it was “appropriate”—once again, the only statutory requirement relevant here—to trigger the regulatory process based on the twin findings that the emissions in question cause profound health and environmental harms and that available pollution control technologies can reduce those emissions. By making that decision, EPA did no more than commit itself to developing a realistic and cost-effective regulation—a rule that would take account of every relevant factor, costs and benefits alike. And indeed, particular features of the statutory scheme here indicate that EPA’s policy choice was not just a minimally reasonable option but an eminently reasonable one. To start, that decision brought EPA’s regulation of power plants into sync with its regulation of every other significant source of hazardous pollutants under the Clean Air Act. For all those types of sources (totaling over 100), the Act instructs EPA to make the threshold decision to regulate based solely on the quantity and effects of pollutants discharged; costs enter the picture afterward, when the Agency takes up the task of actually establishing emissions limits. See supra, at 3–4. Industry after industry, year after year, EPA has followed that approach to standard-setting, just as Congress contemplated. See, e.g., 58 Fed. Reg. 49354 (1993) (dry cleaning facilities); 59 Fed. Reg. 64303 (1994) (gasoline distributors); 60 Fed. Reg. 45948 (1995) (aerospace manufacturers). And apparently