The Supreme Court has crippled the US’s fight against climate change

The US Supreme Court has sharply curbed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) powers to regulate the volumes of carbon that power plants emit. The decision, handed down on Thursday (June 30), will damage the government’s ability to act on climate change, especially at a time when a deadlocked or obstructionist Congress refuses to pass new environmental laws.

For half a century, the EPA has pursued the titular goals of the Clean Air Act by setting standards to curb air pollution. However, justice John Roberts wrote as part of the majority in the 6-3 verdict (pdf), the act didn’t permit the EPA to set emissions limits with a view to transitioning the power sector away from coal. Pursuing that kind of transformation via law is Congress’s job, the court ruled.

The verdict is the culmination of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a lawsuit that rose out of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The plan, put forth by the Obama-era EPA in 2015, was designed to reduce the effects of carbon emissions upon the climate. It was immediately challenged, never went into effect, and was repealed by the EPA during the Trump administration in 2019. The court’s decision will narrow the EPA’s ability to limit carbon emissions, forcing it to focus on its authority to regulate individual power plants rather than setting broader targets for the electricity sector. And if Congress continues to be recalcitrant, or to be dominated by conservative interests, new authorizations that expand the EPA’s powers may never arrive.

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