From Sandra Johnson
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court on Thursday imposed limits on the federal government’s authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants in a ruling that will undermine President Joe Biden’s plans to tackle climate change.
The court’s 6-3 ruling restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal and gas-fired power plants under the landmark Clean Air Act anti-pollution law. Biden’s administration is currently working on new regulations.
The court’s six conservatives were in the majority in the decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, with the three liberals dissenting. The ruling is likely to have implications beyond the EPA as it raises new legal questions about any big decisions made by federal agencies. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has signaled ongoing skepticism toward expansive federal regulatory authority. Conservative legal activists have long advocated reducing agency power in what has been dubbed a “war on the administrative state”.
The justices overturned a 2021 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that had struck down Republican former President Donald Trump’s Affordable Clean Energy rule. That regulation, which the Biden administration has said it has no intention to retain, would impose limits on a Clean Air Act provision called Section 111 that provides the EPA authority to regulate emissions from existing power plants.
The ruling was based on what is called the “major questions” legal doctrine that requires explicit congressional authorization for action on issues of broad importance and societal impact. The justices in January embraced that theory when they blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test policy for larger businesses, a key element of its plan to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The decision will constrain the EPA’s ability to issue any regulations on power plants that push for an ambitious national shift in energy policy toward renewable sources.
