By a 6-3 vote, with the Conservatives in the majority, the court said the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broad power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming. The court ruling could complicate the government’s plans to fight climate change. Its proposal to regulate the emissions of power plants is expected by the end of the year. President Joe Biden aims to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade and have a no-emission electricity sector by 2035. Power plants account for about 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. The ruling came on the same day that Biden accused the Supreme Court of “outrageous behavior” in a speech at the end of a NATO summit in Spain, citing the Supreme Court last week that overturned half a century of human rights abuses. of abortions. . “Reducing carbon dioxide emissions to a level that will force a national transition from using coal to electricity generation could be a logical ‘solution to the crisis of the day,’” Judge John Roberts wrote in his court opinion. But Roberts wrote that the Clean Air Act does not give the EPA the power to do so, and that Congress needs to be clear about this. “A decision of this magnitude and consistency belongs to Congress itself or to a service acting in accordance with a clear delegation from that representative body,” he wrote. Reaction from the Governor of West Virginia: I welcome today’s ruling by the Supreme Court in the WV v. EPA case. This decision in favor of WV will stop unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC from being able to unilaterally rid our economy of carbon just because they like it. Read my full statement ⬇️https://t.co/PouPPlqJfI – @ WVGovernor
“Scary” decision: Kagan disagreement
In a dispute, Judge Elena Kagan wrote that the decision deprives the EPA of the power given to it by Congress. “Everything else this Court may know has no idea how to tackle climate change,” Kagan said. “The Court appoints itself – instead of Congress or the expert service – to be responsible for climate policy decisions. I can not think of many things more frightening.” Reaction from Florida Democratic Congressman: It was the Republican Attorney General’s Association that led the legal attack on the EPA and is heavily funded by special interests, including utilities for burning fossil fuels. – @ AnnaForFlorida The judges heard arguments in the case on the same day that a report by a United Nations commission warned that the effects of climate change were going to get much worse, likely to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer and more dangerous in the years to come. The power plant affair has a long and complicated history that begins with the Obama administration’s Clean Energy Plan. This plan would require states to reduce emissions from electricity generation, mainly by moving away from coal-fired plants. But this plan never came into force. Acting in a lawsuit filed by West Virginia and others, the Supreme Court barred her in 2016 by a 5-4 vote, with the Conservatives in the majority. With the plan pending, the legal battle for it continued. But following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the EPA scrapped the Obama-era plan. The agency argued that its power to reduce carbon emissions was limited and devised a new plan that drastically reduced the federal government’s role in the matter.
Many corporate giants supported the White House position
New York, 21 other predominantly Democratic states, the District of Columbia and some of the nation’s largest cities have sued Trump. The federal court in Washington rejected both the abolition and the new plan, and its decision left nothing to be desired, while the new government was planning a new policy. Adding to the unusual nature of the Supreme Court’s involvement, the cuts sought in the Obama plan by 2030 have already been achieved through the closure of hundreds of coal plants due to the market. Nineteen states and coal companies, mostly led by Republicans, led the fight in the Supreme Court against the EPA’s broad power to regulate coal production. The EPA was founded in 1970 by the government of Republican Richard Nixon. Read the opinion of the Supreme Court: The opinion was one of two issued by the Supreme Court on Thursday, with all cases heard at the 2021-2022 hearing now being heard. Liberal Judge Stephen Breyer announced his resignation on Thursday, with Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn in. Jackson, nominated by Biden, will become the first black woman to serve on the US Supreme Court.
