In a 6-3 ruling, the US Supreme Court limited the ability of the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The conservative justices ruled that the EPA does not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions on a national basis.
The court's majority opinion was written by the chief justice.
Roberts wrote that "Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible solution to the crisis of the day." He said that the decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation.
Dissenting on behalf of the court's three liberal justices, Elena Kagan wrote that the court had substituted its own judgement for the EPA's.
The court doesn't have a clue about how to address climate change The court makes the decision on climate policy. I can't think of a more frightening thing.
The case is based on the EPA's Clean Power Plan. Vice.com reported that the plan called for a shift to more renewable energy and a call to use more natural gas in order to retire coal plants. The Clean Power Plan was put on hold by the Supreme court.
An alternative EPA emissions policy was put into place by the Trump or Biden administrations. Coal companies and several Republican-dominated states, including West Virginia, continued to fight against the hypothetical provisions in the plan, and finally brought their complaints to the Supreme Court.
According to the dissent, the court's ruling could cripple the US government's ability to fight climate change.
After China, the U.S. is the world's second biggest greenhouse gas emitting nation. Legal scholars told The New York Times that President Joe Biden's goals of cutting greenhouse emissions in half by the end of this decade are not feasible.
The court threatens to upend the national government's ability to safeguard the public health and welfare by demanding that an agency only be allowed to promulgate an important and significant climate rule if it shows clear congressional authorization.
Biden's climate agenda has been blocked by 50 Republican members of the U.S. Senate, as well as Joe Manchin, a Democratic senator from West Virginia who has financial ties to the coal industry. According to the new Supreme Court ruling, Congress is the only thing standing in the way of significant climate action in the U.S.
It was originally published on Live Science
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