Supreme Court hears case on EPA’s authority to limit carbon emissions

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear pleas from Republican-led states and coal companies asking it to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Richard J. said: Lazarus, Harvard Law Professor: “This is the equivalent of an earthquake across the country for those who care deeply about the climate issue.”

The court’s decision to bring the case came days before President Biden attends a global climate summit in Scotland as he seeks to reassure other nations that the United States will continue to pursue aggressive policies to combat global warming.

In January, in the last full day of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, a federal appeals court in Washington overturned his administration’s plan to loosen restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. This move paved the way for the Biden administration to issue stronger restrictions.

A divided three-judge panel, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has ruled that the Trump administration’s plan, called the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, is based on a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the relevant law, through a “chain of misreading.”

The committee did not reinstate the 2015 Obama-era regulation, the Clean Power Plan, which would have forced utilities to move away from coal and toward renewable energy to reduce emissions. But she rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to repeal that rule and replace it with what critics described as toothless.

The Obama-era plan was to reduce emissions from the power sector by 32 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. To do so, it directed each state to formulate plans to eliminate carbon emissions from power plants by phasing out coal and increasing renewable energy generation.

The procedure did not take effect. It was banned in 2016 by the Supreme Court, which effectively ruled that states do not have to comply with it until a barrage of lawsuits from conservative states and the coal industry is resolved. That ruling, which was followed by changes to the Supreme Court’s membership that moved her to the right, has made environmental groups wary of what the court might do in climate change cases.

Soon after Mr. Trump was elected, his Environmental Protection Agency scrapped the Clean Power Plan.

Professor Lazarus said the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case threatens to “sharply reduce, if not completely eliminate, the new administration’s ability to use the Clean Air Act to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the country’s power plant”.

Industry support groups welcomed the court’s decision to grant the review.

“The Supreme Court will review the EPA’s massive claims to power to redesign entire industries rather than simply ordering improved technology,” said Devin Watkins, an attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank that opposes most environmental regulations. “This is excellent news because the agency lacks such tremendous power under the law.”

What You Should Know About the Term Supreme Court Card 1 of 5

The leading term begins. The Supreme Court, now controlled by six Republican appointees, returned to the bench on October 4 to begin a momentous period in which it will consider repealing the constitutional right to abortion and significantly expanding gun rights.

The big abortion issue. The court is willing to use the challenge to a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks to undermine and possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. The ruling could effectively end legal access to abortion for those who live in much of the South and Midwest.

A major decision about guns. The court will also consider the constitutionality of New York’s longstanding law that places strict limits on the carrying of guns outside the home. The court has not passed a significant Second Amendment ruling in more than a decade.

Decline in public support. Chief Justice Roberts now leads a court increasingly linked to partisanship. Recent opinion polls show the court suffering a clear decline in public support after a series of extraordinary late-night rulings in politically charged cases.

The Biden administration urged judges not to hear the case, saying the court should wait for the administration to issue its own regulations “after taking into account all relevant considerations, including changes in the electricity sector that have occurred over the past several years.”

The administration’s brief said states and companies, on the other hand, “have urged this court to grant the review now to help guide the next rule-making process, but this is nothing more than a request for an impermissible advisory opinion.”

A summary provided by West Virginia and more than a dozen other states urged judges to act now.

“How we respond to climate change is an urgent issue for our nation, yet some paths forward carry massive and disproportionate costs to states and countless other affected parties,” the note read. “Continuing uncertainty about the scope of the EPA’s authority will impose costs that we can never offset because the EPA, the state, and others will have to throw more years and resources into an — at best — legally uncertain institution. The court must step in now.”

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