The Supreme Court is on the verge of restricting the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
The court’s conservative majority appears likely to side with Republican-controlled states and coal companies in, for which the court heard oral arguments on Feb. 28 and is expected to issue a ruling in June.
When former President Barack Obama took office, he focused on trying to get Congress to pass a bill to regulate carbon emissions across the economy, which would have displaced the EPA’s regulatory authority. After unified Republican opposition blocked that effort in the Senate, the EPA drafted regulations, which were finalized in 2015 under the rubric “Clean Power Plan.”
Coal-friendly states sued, arguing that this approach went beyond the EPA’s power under the Clean Air Act, and the Supreme Courtin 2016. The Democrats then lost the White House in 2016 to Donald Trump, a climate science denier and coal industry booster.
A broader decision could have a broader impact, though: If the court holds that the federal government lacks the authority to require lowering emissions through anything but pollution control technology, the Biden administration will not be able to write a new rule that includes other approaches. “It will have lost the ability to get significant reductions that are low-cost,” Revesz said. That’s why most energy utilities actually supported the EPA in this case.
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