Supreme Court rules for coal-producing states, limits EPA’s power to fight climate change

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday for the major coal-producing states and sharply limited the Biden administration’s authority to restrict the carbon pollution that is causing global warming.

The justices agreed with lawyers for West Virginia, and said Congress did not give environmental regulators broad authority to reshape the system for producing electric power by switching from coal to natural gas, wind turbines and solar energy.

The court split 6-3 in the case of West Virginia vs. EPA.

The ruling appears to allow for regulations focused narrowly on controlling pollution from smokestacks, but blocks broader rules that would set state-by-state targets for pollution and force a shift to other ways of producing electricity.

The outcome reflects the conservative court’s skepticism of federal regulation, particularly when it appears to go beyond what Congress specifically authorized.

Environmentalists have called for regulations to fight climate change, but for more than 20 years Republicans in Congress have steadily opposed new legislation on the issue.

They had one solid precedent on their side. In 2007, the court ruled that greenhouse gases were air pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act of the 1970s. That decision came on a 5-4 vote, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and the late Justice Antonin Scalia in dissent.

Faced with the continuing deadlock in Congress, President Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency sought to combat climate change by regulating power plants, which are the largest source of greenhouse gases except for the transportation industry. EPA relied on a provision in the Clean Air Act which called for reducing pollution through the “best system of emissions reduction.”

Under Obama’s plan, states would be required to reduce their pollution in the most effective way, including by switching from coal-fired power plants to using more solar energy and wind power. But in February of 2016, a week before Scalia died, the court issued an order on a 5-4 vote that blocked Obama’s plan from taking effect.

The Trump administration then decided Obama’s plan exceeded the EPA’s authority under the law. Several blue states sued to challenge that conclusion, and they won in the U.S. appeals court in Washington which ruled the EPA could adopt broad regulations.

Upon taking office, the Biden administration said it would devise a new set of regulations to reduce pollution from power plants. But before it could do so, West Virginia and 18 other Republican-controlled states urged the Supreme Court to clarify the law.

That set the stage for the ruling limiting the EPA’s authority.