Opinion: Supreme Court decisions will hurt Utah and its neighbors

Over and over the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has buried a knife in the back of the Biden Administration’s attempt to deliver cleaner air, cleaner water and a fighting chance to mitigate the climate crisis. By doing so, they also buried a knife in the back of the health and life expectancy of everyone in Utah, almost literally. Yet Utah’s Republican leaders cheered the court’s callousness.

Two years ago, the court neutered EPA’s Clean Power Plan, aimed at reducing coal power plant emissions nationwide and accelerating their disappearance as major climate villains. Last year, they narrowed the definition of wetlands in a way that dismisses the many environmental benefits that wetlands provide, and wetlands throughout the country will be lost because of it.

We cannot save Great Salt Lake while degrading and amputating its wetlands. But that’s what’s in store for more than tens of thousands of acres of the lake’s adjacent wetlands thanks to the misguided warehouse building frenzy brought to you by the Utah Inland Port Authority.

Trading wetlands for asphalt is an air pollution “double whammy.” Wetlands act like sponges and absorb particulate pollution. The presence or absence of wetlands can even predict levels of particulate pollution in an area. On the other hand, asphalt, even without vehicle traffic, emits VOCs and secondary organic aerosols virtually indefinitely, especially in summer heat. In fact, this phenomenon was calculated as equal to, or even exceeding the contribution of tailpipe emissions to summertime PM2.5 in Los Angeles. VOCs are toxic in and of themselves and are also precursors of ozone.

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Opinion: Supreme Court decisions will hurt Utah and its neighbors

Opinion: Supreme Court decisions will hurt Utah and its neighbors

Opinion: Supreme Court decisions will hurt Utah and its neighbors

Opinion: Supreme Court decisions will hurt Utah and its neighbors

Opinion: Supreme Court decisions will hurt Utah and its neighbors