Within days, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision that will limit the federal government's authority to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants.
It is only the beginning.
The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, is the result of a multi-year strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders to use the judicial system to rewrite environmental law.
There are more climate cases coming up through the federal courts, some featuring novel legal arguments that could block the government from regulating industries and businesses that produce greenhouse gases.
The West Virginia vs. E.P.A. case is indicative of larger issues. Paul Nolette is a professor of political science and has studied state attorneys general. The strategies are getting more sophisticated.
The administrative state, the E.P.A., and other federal agencies that set rules and regulations affect the American economy are what the lawsuit wants to hem in. The Louisiana attorney general said that Congress should be more accountable to voters.
Climate change has not been addressed by Congress. It has delegated authority to the agencies because it lacks the expertise of the specialists who write complex rules and regulations and who can respond quickly to changing science.
The tangle of connections between the Supreme Court justices who will decide the case in West Virginia v. E.P.A. is noteworthy. John G. Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M.
Graves is the executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North Research. The attorneys are going to bring the litigation before the judges that they chose.
The same network of conservative donors who helped former President Donald J. Trump place more than 200 federal judges is behind the climate cases filed by the Republican attorneys general.
Two of the cases show the aggressive nature of the legal campaign. The suits challenge policies that aren't yet in place. They want to prevent a future president from following in the footsteps of President Biden, who promised to pivot the country away from fossil fuels in his State of the Union speech.
Even though transportation is the country's largest source of greenhouse gases, the federal government wouldn't be able to dramatically restrict tailpipe emissions because of victories in these cases.
Fossil fuel-fired power plants would not be replaced with wind and solar power because the government wouldn't be able to force it.
The executive branch can't consider the economic costs of climate change when making a decision on whether or not to approve a project.
The goal of cutting enough emissions to keep the planet from heating up more than an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius is likely to be doomed by the limitations on climate action in the United States. Scientists say the likelihood of catastrophic hurricanes, drought, heat waves and wildfires increases if you go past the threshold. The Earth is warming at an average rate of 1.1 degrees Celsius.
"If the Supreme Court uses this as an opportunity to squash E.P.A.'s ability to regulate on climate change, it will seriously impede U.S. progress towards solving the problem."
The goal of the Republican activists is to overturn the legal doctrine by which Congress has delegated authority to federal agencies to regulate the environment, health care, workplace safety, telecommunications, the financial sector and more.
According to the doctrine known as the "Chevron deference," courts must defer to reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes by federal agencies on the theory that agencies have more expertise than judges and are more accountable to voters. Associate Justice John Paul Stevens said in his opinion that judges are not experts in the field and are not part of either political branch of the government.
Conservatives think the decision violates the separation of powers by allowing executive branch officials to say what the law is. In one of his most famous opinions as an appeals court judge, Associate Justice Gorsuch wrote that the power of the judiciary was being taken over by executive bureaucrats.
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have agency actions that are subject to the Chevron deference. Conservatives may be distrusting of certain kinds of expertise, which may be the reason for their opposition to the doctrine.
One of Mr. Trump's top objectives was the deconstruction of the administrative state.
Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who worked in the Trump White House, said that the Chevron deference has been a target of conservatives. He wrote in an email that the originalist crew has been revising the company for a long time. They are going to be rewarded with a lot of money.
In 2015, when McConnell became the Senate majority leader, he led a campaign to prevent Obama from appointing federal judges.
He waited for a Republican administration to fill the courts with judges who shared his beliefs in minimal government regulation. The dying coal industry in Kentucky was motivated by the new E.P.A. rules.
Neil Chatterjee was Mr. McConnell's former energy policy aide.
Mr. McConnell made sure that Mr. Trump got an open Supreme Court seat.
Leonard A.Leo came in.
The appointment of Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alito to the Supreme Court was made possible by the work of the executive vice president of the Federalist Society.
Koch Industries, which has fought climate action, is one of the many funders of the Federalist Society.
Donald F. McGahn II was Mr. Trump's White House counsel and a member of the Federalist Society.
Mr. McGahn said what he wanted to say. Mr. McGahn spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference. He said that it wasn't a coincidence. It's part of a bigger plan.
The judicial selection and deregulatory efforts are both part of the same plan.
The Judicial Crisis Network, a nonprofit advocacy group, ran campaigns to help the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, as well as to install dozens of other like minded judges on lower courts.
Three Supreme Court justices and 54 appeals court judges were appointed by Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden has appointed more federal judges than anyone else.
The head of the Federalist Society stepped down to start a political strategy firm. He has operated at the center of a constellation of advocacy groups and undisclosed donors that share the same goal of using the courts to advance conservative and libertarian causes.
The Republican Attorneys General Association is a big client. The newest iteration of the Judicial Crisis Network is the Concord Fund. The fund is the largest backer of the Republican attorneys general association.
The Judicial Crisis Network has poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of Republican attorneys general. In the current electoral cycle, the Concord Fund has given more money than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The fund doesn't have to reveal its donors' identities to the public.
Politicians and the judiciary have relationships with untraceable funds. The Democratic Attorneys General Association is a political action committee that helps members win elections. Both parties pursue cases that are in line with their interests. The attorneys general fought a lot of Mr. Trump's policies.
Legal experts say that the Republican attorneys general have taken such strategies to a new level.
Richard Revesz is a professor of environmental law at New York University.
The two men did not respond to requests for interviews. Mr. McConnell didn't want to be interviewed.
The judges given lifetime appointments by Mr. Trump are usually supported by Mr.Leo and his network. Ms. Rao was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after Mr. McGahn talked to her.
The D.C. Circuit Court hears challenges to federal environmental, health, and safety regulations, making it the second most powerful court in the country.
She had never tried a case or served as a judge. She had a dislike of government regulations.
She clerked for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and worked in the Bush administration. She is the founder of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, which gathers critics of federal regulation. She met with representatives of the Koch Foundation after consulting with Mr. Leo before founding the center.
She was appointed to run the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs by Mr. Trump. More than 100 environmental rules were weakened or eliminated as a result of her actions from that perch.
The Trump team was sometimes pushed to go further. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas that leaks from oil and gas wells, was proposed to be loosened by the first E.P.A. chief.
There are at least two climate cases pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C.
In the West Virginia v. E.P.A. case he argued that the agency did not have the authority to regulate pollution.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has seven judges appointed by Democrats and 19 by Republicans. The Republican attorneys general are challenging the government's ability to consider the economic cost of climate change when making environmental decisions.
Andrew was once a deputy attorney general of Texas. He said in a speech that climate regulation and the E.P.A. itself are illegitimate.
Don Willett, a former fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, was appointed by Mr. Trump to explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels.
The judges didn't reply to requests for interviews.
A core group of attorneys general from fossil fuel states are leading the legal challenges.
They meet frequently with the oil, gas and coal industries. He said that it would be great to see an overturn of the company.
In the West Virginia case, there is a line of attack related to Chevron, as well as arguments about the separation of powers, which hold that Congress should use plain and direct language if it is to authorize sweeping actions by administrative agencies that could transform the economy.
Mr. Morrisey, who argued the West Virginia case before the Supreme Court, said that they wanted to make sure the right people made the correct decisions. Federal agencies don't have the ability to act on their own without a statement from Congress. It's important that delegation matters.
The West Virginia power plant suit is one of several cases in the D.C. Circuit Court.
The livelihoods of hard-working Texans will be harmed by the auto pollution rule, according to Mr. Paxton.
More than a dozen Democratic-governed states are expected to impose tougher state auto pollution standards if that challenge succeeds. The Republican attorneys general are trying to stop states from doing that.
The way the federal government calculates the real-life cost of climate change is being challenged. If the attorneys general succeed in blocking the use of that metric, the federal government's legal defense for any future climate policy could be taken away.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals covers Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, North and South Dakota and Minnesota.
The A.G.s have an advantage here where they can choose the most favorable venues for their litigation. They can form a multistate coalition to argue more in front of more judges. That increases their chances of success.
A string of victories would make it impossible to overturn Chevron.
Sally Katzen, co-director of the Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic at New York University School of Law, said that a Supreme Court victory this month for the Republican attorneys general and their allies would be a sign of things to come.
The former head of the White House office of regulatory affairs in the Clinton administration believes that the Federalist Society has put a lot of time and energy into this. It has paid off. This is not the end of their agenda. I believe it's just the beginning.
The reporting was done by Kitty Bennett and Adam Liptak.
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