WASHINGTON. Members of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court on Monday questioned the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, suggesting the court could deal a sharp blow to the Biden administration’s climate change efforts.
The interrogation during the two-hour argument was mostly technical, and several conservative judges did not show their hands. But those who did were skeptical that Congress intended to give the agency what they said was enormous power to determine national economic policy.
It appears the Biden administration and environmental groups have not taken up with the argument put forward by the courts: The four cases before the judges, including West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency #20-1530, are not ripe for a decision because there is no regulation in place. They said the court should wait to consider specific issues rather than rule on hypothetical ones.
Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar said the administration is working on a new regulation that the courts will be able to consider once it is issued.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Stephen G. Breuer indicated that they did not think the Supreme Court needed to wait.
Much of the argument has centered on whether the Clean Air Act allows the agency to issue comprehensive regulations in the energy sector and, more broadly, on how clearly Congress should authorize the executive to deal with major political and economic issues.
Last year, on the last full day of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, a federal appeals court in Washington shot down his administration’s plan to ease restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The Trump administration said the Clean Air Act explicitly limits the measures the agency can use to those “that can be put into operation in a building, structure, facility, or installation.”
A divided three-judge panel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ruled that the Trump administration’s plan, called the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, was based on a “fundamental misinterpretation” of the relevant law, caused by a “torturous series of misreadings.”
“EPA has sufficient discretion in the performance of its mandate,” the decision said. “But he cannot shirk his responsibility by inventing new restrictions that the plain language of the statute does not explicitly require.”
The group has not reinstated the 2015 Obama-era ruling, the Clean Energy Plan, which would have forced utilities to phase out coal and switch to renewables to cut emissions. But he rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to replace the rule with what critics have called toothless.
The appeals court decision also gave the Biden administration the opportunity to impose tighter restrictions.
The Obama-era plan aimed to cut emissions from the energy sector by 32 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels. To do this, he directed each state to develop plans to eliminate carbon emissions from power plants by phasing out coal and increasing renewable energy production.
The Obama administration’s clean energy plan never went into effect. It was blocked in 2016 by the Supreme Court, which effectively ruled that states were not required to comply with it until a flurry of lawsuits from conservative states and the coal industry was resolved. The ruling, followed by changes to the Supreme Court that moved it to the right, has left environmental groups wary of what the court might do in climate change cases.
On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, set up by the United Nations, released its most comprehensive view to date on threats posed by global warming on homes, human health, livelihoods and natural ecosystems around the world. The report, endorsed by 195 governments, says the dangers posed by climate change are greater and evolving faster than ever before, and that it may be difficult for humanity to adapt to the consequences if greenhouse gas emissions are not quickly reduced over the next few decades.
“Any further delay in concerted proactive global action,” the report says, “will miss a brief and fast-closing window of opportunity to secure an acceptable and sustainable future for all.”
Brad Plumer contributed reporting