The Supreme Court just took away an EPA tool to fight climate change — what happens next?

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The Supreme Court gutted a tool the US could have used to fight climate change. The EPA shouldn't be allowed to determine whether the US gets its electricity from clean or dirty sources, according to the decision today.

The agency tried to regulate the power sector in order to transition the US away from fossil fuels. With the new decision, the agency might be able to push a power plant to install technology to reduce emissions on-site, but it can't influence states' decisions on where they get their energy from The premise of the court's decision could undermine any federal agency's ability to regulate industry in order to tackle climate change.

Whether the US can follow through on its climate commitments depends on the actions of individual states and the ability of Congress to pass legislation. Biden wants to slash the country's CO2 emissions in half from their peak levels this decade and have a carbon pollution-free power grid by the year 2035.

Major questions and the EPA

The biggest step the US had yet taken on climate change was taken by the Obama administration. The Clean Power Plan was an attempt by the EPA to cut power plant greenhouse gas emissions. The plan was replaced with a weaker rule by the Trump administration. It was up to the EPA to craft a new rule to deal with power plants' climate pollution after a federal court blocked that. Today's decision by the Supreme Court affects the new rule.

A primer on the case was written by The Verge. It's a question of whether federal agencies have the authority to interpret ambiguous language in statutes, or if it should be left up to Congress.

The Supreme Court decided to leave it up to Congress to strengthen the doctrine. If Congress hasn't passed legislation detailing how to address an issue of major national significance, then a federal agency doesn't have the authority to craft regulation based on its own interpretation.

Robert Glicksman is a professor at the George Washington University Law School. If it hasn't been done before, it's probably illegal, which is a devastating blow to the ability of agencies to act flexible and proactive.

The high stakes of Justice Elena Kagan's dissent were laid out. The court doesn't have a clue about how to address climate change The court prevented congressional action to curb power plants' carbon dioxide emissions. The court has the power to make the decision on climate policy. I can't think of a more frightening thing.

Since the Clean Air Act wasn't written to deal with climate change, the EPA isn't left with a lot of options in the wake of the court decision.

What climate moves can the US make?

Even if those actions aren't as ambitious as the Obama administration intended, the agency can still take some actions. According to the partner in the Environmental Practice Group at the law firm Arnold & Porter, the decision that came out today could have been much more restrictive. The EPA was able to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act despite the Supreme Court not questioning it.

"EPA absolutely anticipated this decision, and is already thinking about what it can still do to limit power plants' climate pollution in a way that can't be construed as an attempt to remake the nation's entire energy system." The EPA put out a white paper in April that looked at a range of tech fixes for power plant pollution. Carbon capture technology draws greenhouse gas directly out of smokestack emissions.

Power plants that burn coal or gas could be required to install those technologies. That kind of technology has drawn criticism from environmentalists worried that it will perpetuate the nation's dependence on fossil fuels, which release pollutants other than CO2 that clean energy advocates want to see eliminated.

Congress needs to pass legislation to promote clean energy in order to clean up the power grid. There are obstacles on that avenue as well.

Democrats are in danger of losing control of Congress in the fall due to their inability to pass climate legislation. The Democrats tried to pass a budget reconciliation bill that included $555 billion for climate action. Efforts to clean up the nation's power grid, which was watered down over months of negotiations from a plan that would have penalize utilities for sticking with fossil fuels to a newer iteration that relies primarily on tax incentives for clean energy, was the main focus of the bill.

The watered-down provisions are proving to be difficult to pass, but advocates are not giving up on the bill. Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax incentives could still go a long way towards cutting power plant pollution, even though the Supreme Court decision today could jeopardize any further moves federal agencies might take on climate.

States are taking steps to eliminate fossil fuels. Governors and states have quickly passed binding 100 percent clean energy standards. More and more states will be doing that, according to a communications advisor for a nonprofit organization.

The power sector is the linchpin of any strategy to clean up the environment. 25% of the US's planet- heating carbon dioxide emissions are caused by electricity. Plans to decarbonize transportation and buildings rely on a clean grid so that things like electric vehicles and stove can run on renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

It isn't a time for people who care about the planet to back away. Climate advocates need to get more aggressive.