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As the Supreme Court opens its current session, two of the items scheduled for Nov. 7 are environmental issues that potentially have huge ramifications for how federal standards are established.

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Justices will decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency can set air pollution standards on its own without a congressional mandate. They also must rule whether the agency should be required to consider the costs and benefits of these standards in addition to health and welfare considerations.

American Trucking Associations spearheaded a legal challenge in 1997 involving EPA’s smog and soot standards that were invalidated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in May 1999. EPA asked the Supreme Court to consider the issue after its appellate appeal was rejected.

EPA contends the “ramifications of this case could go well beyond EPA’s clean air work to any number of other environmental and public health programs.”

Costs of complying with these invalidated standards was pegged at $45 billion by the ATA. Others, including economists, have argued that for EPA to ignore costs could lead to air standards being set at or near zero.