Duncan Featured in Business Journal for EPA, Supreme Court Victory

Shook, Hardy & Bacon Partner and Chair of the firm’s Energy Law practice Tristan Duncan and her work for Peabody Energy Corp. have been featured in a February 26 Kansas City Business Journal article titled, “Shook lawyer wins big at high court.”

Duncan, who represents the company in climate change litigation, recently received a 5-4 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, pending a lower court’s review. Peabody Energy is the world’s largest publicly owned coal company.

The Clean Power Plan, which would require states to make major cuts to CO2 emissions from electric utilities, would eliminate thousands of mining jobs and create overwhelming unemployment in the industry.

The U.S. Circuit Court in Washington, D.C. will now take up the case and issue a ruling later this year.

The Business Journal also discusses another of Duncan’s recent related cases: Michigan v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA cannot bypass cost-benefit analysis when formulating new regulations. Duncan and her co-counsel filed an amicus brief on behalf of Peabody Energy arguing that reasoned decision-making necessarily requires a Rule do more good than harm. The EPA cannot forego the customary practice of doing cost benefit analyses, Duncan argued, because that custom cabins the EPA’s authority and prevents arbitrary decision-making. The Court included Duncan’s arguments in its decision, which deemed that the EPA rules were illegal.