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Page Number: 31.0

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ENTERGY CORP. v. RIVERKEEPER, INC. 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

Like the Court of Appeals, I am convinced that the EPA
has misinterpreted the plain text of §316(b).  Unless costs 
are  so  high  that  the  best  technology  is  not  “available,” 
Congress  has  decided  that  they  are  outweighed  by  the
benefits  of  minimizing  adverse  environmental  impact. 
Section  316(b)  neither  expressly  nor  implicitly  authorizes
the EPA to use cost-benefit analysis when setting regula-
tory standards; fairly read, it prohibits such use. 

I 
As typically performed by the EPA, cost-benefit analysis
requires  the  Agency  to  first  monetize  the  costs  and  bene-
fits  of  a  regulation,  balance  the  results,  and  then  choose 
the regulation with the greatest net benefits.  The process
is  particularly  controversial  in  the  environmental  context
in  which  a  regulation’s  financial  costs  are  often  more
obvious  and  easier  to  quantify  than  its  environmental 
benefits.  And  cost-benefit  analysis  often,  if  not  always,
yields  a  result  that  does  not  maximize  environmental 
protection.

For  instance,  although  the  EPA  estimated  that  water
intake  structures  kill  3.4  billion  fish  and  shellfish  each 
year,1  see  69  Fed.  Reg.  41586,  the  Agency  struggled  to
calculate  the  value  of  the  aquatic  life  that  would  be  pro-

—————— 

1 To  produce  energy,  industrial  powerplants  withdraw  billions  of 
gallons  of  water  daily  from  our  Nation’s  waterways.    Thermo-
electric  powerplants  alone  demand  39  percent  of  all  freshwater  with-
drawn  nationwide.  See  Dept.  of  Energy,  Addressing  the  Critical 
Link  Between  Fossil  Energy  and  Water  2  (Oct.  2005),  http:// 
www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/ewr/pubs/NETL_Water_Paper
_Final_Oct.2005.pdf  (all  Internet  materials  as  visited  Mar.  18,  2009, 
and  available  in  Clerk  of  Court’s  case  file).    The  fish  and  shellfish  are 
killed  by  “impingement”  or  “entrainment.”    Impingement  occurs  when
aquatic  organisms  are  trapped  against  the  screens  and  grills  of  water 
intake  structures.    Entrainment  occurs  when  these  organisms  are 
drawn  into  the  intake  structures.  See  Riverkeeper,  Inc.  v.  EPA,  475 
F. 3d 83, 89 (CA2 2007); 69 Fed. Reg. 41586 (2004).