Court Opinion

ID: 9484513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:55:32.599462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:17.462380
License: Public Domain

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the court’s opinion with one caveat. Assuming, as the court states, that the “stimulation of use of nondepletable resources” factor in § 6839 is more difficult to apply than the “economic cost and benefit” factor, it does not necessarily follow that DOE must discount the former factor. It is true that this factor is only one of several listed in § 6839. However, Congress considered the goal of averting an energy shortage significant enough to merit mention in its statement of findings and purpose. See § 6831(a)(2) (“[Standards for newly constructed buildings can prevent ... waste of energy, which the Nation can no longer afford in view of its current and anticipated energy shortage.”). ' Referring to the use of a “feasibility” test in the OSHA context, the court observes that the protection of human health involves losses difficult to quantify. Protection of depletable sources of energy also involves losses difficult to quantify, and therefore appears to warrant a test less exacting than a cost/benefit analysis.