Court limits power to fight climate change
The US Supreme Court ruling limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants could have far-reaching consequences for the nation’s energy sector – and make it harder for the Biden Administration to meet its goal of having the US power grid run on clean energy by 2035.
The United States has been gradually transitioning away from coal to cleaner sources of electricity such as natural gas, solar energy and wind, often because they are less expensive.
Most experts don’t think the Supreme Court decision in West Virginia versus EPA will immediately reverse that trajectory. But the ruling could slow the transition to clean energy in the future, because it imposes constraints on what the EPA can do without exceeding its legal authority.
This is a frightening prospect, with climate experts warning of dire consequences as global temperatures and extreme weather conditions steadily rise.
The ruling has infuriated US President Joe Biden and environmentalists, who said it raised formidable obstacles to the US meeting its climate aims.
‘‘Another devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards,’’ Biden said.
Depending how Congress or the courts interpret the court’s ruling in the future, it could also change the way other US government agencies can regulate the power sector.
The ruling would also set a tone in policy-making chambers, making it harder to persuade state lawmakers to craft laws to boost renewable energy, said Sachu Constantine, executive director of Vote Solar, which advocates for laws favourable to solar energy in state legislatures.
‘‘Without the threat of EPA or federal regulation of climate, without a recognition that carbon pollution is really, truly harmful, it becomes harder to make that argument,’’ Constantine said.
The case the Supreme Court took up, West Virginia versus EPA, had been filed in response to former president Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. This would have required states to reduce emissions from electricity generation, primarily by shifting away from coal-fired plants.
That prospect upset several industries, including coal, and some state attorneys-general. They challenged how far the EPA could go to influence the industry’s transition away from coal and to cleaner sources.
Energy industry officials argued that the EPA had gone too far and overstepped what Congress had intended. The challenge in the West Virginia case sought to diminish that authority. It succeeded.
The ruling means the EPA cannot force states to shift away from coal to cleaner sources such as natural gas or renewables, or compel coal-fired plants to shut down.
The EPA still has the authority to regulate emissions from power plants in other ways.
The US has been pivoting from coal to cleaner sources such as renewables anyway, often for economic reasons. Many states and large companies have commitments to use clean energy in the near future.
‘‘Large electricity users like very large corporations are saying, ‘We want 100% clean way earlier than 2050’ ... so there’s a whole lot of other forces going on besides EPA regulations at the moment that are driving things in a certain direction,’’ said Sue Tierney, a senior adviser at Analysis Group and expert on power markets. The case deeply divided the US business community. Mining companies and other firms in the coal sector urged the court to rein in the EPA, arguing that coal was necessary for keeping electricity prices low and the grid reliable. Apple, Tesla and other major tech and retail firms investing in renewable energy, meanwhile, told the court that ‘‘stable, nationwide rules’’ were needed to avert climate disaster.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as a US Supreme Court justice yesterday, shattering a glass ceiling as the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court.
Jackson, 51, is the court’s 116th justice. She took the place of the justice she once worked for, Justice Stephen Breyer.
Jackson, a federal judge since 2013, joins three other women – Justices
Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett. It is the first time four women will serve together on the nine-member court.
US President Joe Biden nominated Jackson in February, a month after Breyer announced that he would retire at the end of the court’s current term, assuming his successor had been confirmed.
The Senate confirmed Jackson’s nomination in early April, by a 53-47 mostly party-line vote that included support from three Republicans.
Glynda Carr, president of Higher Heights for America, an organisation that advocates for the growth of Black women’s political power in the US, said the timing of