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The Fayette Power Project, a coal-fired power plant, operates near La Grange, TX , Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018.
FILE -- A coal-fired power plant in Huntingtown, Utah, on Feb. 7, 2019. The Supreme Court on Thursday, June 30, 2022, limited the Environmental Protection Agency?•s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, dealing a blow to the Biden administration?•s efforts to address climate change. (Brandon Thibodeaux/The New York Times)
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 30: The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on the final day of its term on June 30, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Court issued its final opinions for the term, West Virginia v. EPA and Biden v. Texas. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The earth is aflame. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court yanked away the fire hose.
In its latest disturbing decision, the high court drastically narrowed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to fight the scorching ravages of climate change.
The court ruled 6-3 in West Va. v. EPA, a case challenging President Obama’s 2015 Clean Power Plan, a landmark effort to reduce carbon emissions nationwide. It never got implemented. The impact of the decision will go far beyond that plan, and even beyond the environment. In ruling against the EPA, the court adopted a strict standard for when any federal agency may impose rules the court deems likely to be especially disruptive to America’s economy and politics.
Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by the court’s five other conservatives, reasoned that in those instances, the agencies’ rules must have been explicitly authorized by Congress.
In the case of the Clean Power Plan, standards for existing power plants were so ambitious that states likely would have had to reduce their reliance on coal to meet them. Roberts reasoned that if Congress had wanted the EPA to determine what kinds of energy America’s power plants used, it would have said so.
“Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible solution to the crisis of the day.” Roberts wrote. “But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme.”
The ruling builds on a string of recent decisions that have checked agencies’ power, including the CDC when it announced a moratorium on evictions during the pandemic.
What makes this case such a troubling example is that the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions from power plants is clear. Congress granted the EPA sweeping authority to curb pollution from various sources in the Clean Air Act of 1970. Along with the Clear Water Act, it’s one of two pillars of modern environmentalism, and is considered by many the most important positive legacy of Richard Nixon’s presidency. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon emissions, the greenhouse gases tied to climate change, were “pollution” for purposes of the Clean Air Act.
What’s more, the Obama Clean Power Plan left it up to the states to decide how to achieve its aggressive emissions goals. That was a tremendous advantage for states such as Texas, which was (and is) miles ahead of its competitors in harnessing wind energy, and where natural gas, far cleaner than coal, is in such abundance.
Justice Elena Kagan nodded to that history in her dissent, joined by Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
“Today, the court strips the Environmental Protection Agency of the power Congress gave it to respond to ‘the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,’” Kagan wrote, quoting from 2007’s , Massachusetts v. EPA.
By hobbling the EPA just when we need it most, the court has handed responsibility for addressing climate change to just the people and institutions who’ve refused to do so for so long. Here at home, that’s officials such as Gov. Greg Abbott and the disingenuously named Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
With the world on fire, the only possible solution is for the voters to elect candidates who seem to understand the value of a fire hose and aren’t afraid to use it.
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Instead of shutting down the program immediately, they let it fade away over the course of a year. A tidal wave of applicants has now rushed to seek billions of additional dollars in last-minute tax breaks.
By Eric Dexheimer and Mike Morris