“the court says Wednesday that the EPA cannot threaten fines of more than $30,000 a day without giving property owners the ability to challenge its actions.”
Um....Why is $30K the magic number? It’s just as devastating as $175K to the average person.
Yeah, that's the first thing I wondered, too. Scalia says the EPA shouldn't levy fines of over $30,000 per day?
Some "victory".
By the way, I wonder how the court would have ruled if the EPA fines were “only”, say, $25,000 per day?
Different outcome? Yikes.
>> Um....Why is $30K the magic number?
I don’t think $30K is the magic number (in the sense that a $29999 fine can’t be appealed). I submit that what Scalia is really saying is something like this:
“The EPA cannot [do something as heavy handed as] threaten[ing] fines of more than $30,000 per day [as they did in the case in question] without giving property owners the ability to challenge its actions...”
FRegards
The $30,000 number is not a threshhold in the decision, its just the news story. As far as I can tell there is no threshold number.