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4 

ENTERGY CORP. v. RIVERKEEPER, INC. 

Opinion of BREYER, J. 

achievable,” both “without regard to cost.”  Ibid. 

As  this  language  suggests,  the  Act’s  sponsors  had  rea-
sons  for  minimizing  the  EPA’s  investigation  of,  and  reli-
ance  upon,  cost-benefit  comparisons.    The  preparation  of
formal  cost-benefit  analyses  can  take  too  much  time, 
thereby delaying regulation.  And the sponsors feared that 
such analyses would emphasize easily quantifiable factors
over  more  qualitative  factors  (particularly  environmental
factors,  for  example,  the  value  of  preserving  non-
marketable species of fish).  See S. Rep., at 47.  Above all, 
they  hoped  that  minimizing  the  use  of  cost-benefit  com-
parisons  would  force  the  development  of  cheaper  control
technologies; and doing so, whatever the initial inefficien-
cies,  would  eventually  mean  cheaper,  more  effective 
cleanup.  See id., at 50–51. 

Nonetheless,  neither  the  sponsors’  language  nor  the 
underlying rationale requires the Act to be read in a way
that  would  forbid  cost-benefit  comparisons.  Any  such
total  prohibition  would  be  difficult  to  enforce,  for  every
real choice requires a decisionmaker to weigh advantages 
against  disadvantages,  and  disadvantages  can  be  seen  in
terms of (often quantifiable) costs.  Moreover, an absolute 
prohibition  would  bring  about  irrational  results.    As  the 
respondents  themselves  say,  it  would  make  no  sense  to 
require  plants  to  “spend  billions  to  save  one  more  fish  or 
plankton.”  Brief  for  Respondents  Riverkeeper,  Inc.,  et al. 
29.  That is so even if the industry might somehow afford 
those billions.  And it is particularly so in an age of limited 
resources  available  to  deal  with  grave  environmental
problems, where too much wasteful expenditure devoted to 
one  problem  may  well  mean  considerably  fewer  resources
available  to  deal  effectively  with  other  (perhaps  more
serious) problems.

Thus  Senator  Muskie  used  nuanced  language,  which
one can read as leaving to the Agency a degree of author-
ity  to  make  cost-benefit  comparisons  in  a  manner  that  is