Cite as: 531 U. S. 457 (2001)
Opinion of Breyer, J.
means that the relevant economic costs are speculative, for they include the cost of unknown future technologies. It also means that efforts to take costs into account can breed time-consuming and potentially unresolvable arguments about the accuracy and significance of cost estimates. Congress could have thought such efforts not worth the delays and uncertainties that would accompany them. In any event, that is what the statute's history seems to say. See Union Elec., supra, at 256-259. And the matter is one for Congress to decide.
Moreover, the Act does not, on this reading, wholly ignore cost and feasibility. As the majority points out, ante, at 466-467, the Act allows regulators to take those concerns into account when they determine how to implement ambient air quality standards. Thus, States may consider economic costs when they select the particular control devices used to meet the standards, and industries experiencing difficulty in reducing their emissions can seek an exemption or variance from the state implementation plan. See Union Elec., supra, at 266 ("[T]he most important forum for consideration of claims of economic and technological infeasibility is before the state agency formulating the implementation plan").
The Act also permits the EPA, within certain limits, to consider costs when it sets deadlines by which areas must attain the ambient air quality standards. 42 U. S. C. § 7502(a)(2)(A) (providing that "the Administrator may extend the attainment date . . . for a period no greater than 10 years from the date of designation as nonattainment, considering the severity of nonattainment and the availability and feasibility of pollution control measures"); § 7502(a)(2)(C) (permitting the Administrator to grant up to two additional 1-year extensions); cf. §§ 7511(a)(1), (5) (setting more rigid attainment deadlines for areas in nonattainment of the ozone standard, but permitting the Administrator to grant up to two 1-year extensions). And Congress can change those statutory limits if necessary. Given the ambient air quality
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