New Supreme Court ruling limits climate action options.
Photo by Bill Mason on Unsplash
This week, the Supreme Court came to a conclusion regarding the interpretation of the 1970s Clean Air Act. Essentially, This ruling limits the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate green house gas emissions and says that the EPA does not have the authority to shift power generation from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Sources at NPR and Bloomberg site this ruling a a massive blow to the Biden Administration’s climate agenda and climate policy as a whole.
While expected, "this was a significant blow"" said Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy during the Obama Administration. "Being able to look across the entire grid and encourage cleaner electricity based on the best, cheapest sources available was a powerful tool to combat climate change,"
The Biden Administration has currently pledged to reduce overall US carbon emission by 50% as of 2030. This means, that in order to do that, electricity generation would have to reduce emissions by 80% according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Electricity generation is not only a massive emitter, but cleaning up these processes and making them more environmentally friendly is essential to reaching the goals outlined by the Biden Administration, which makes the impact of this new ruling feel even more severe. With all of this in mind, the EPA has already been working to employ limits on other pollutants that could help to steer power generation away from non renewable sources such as coal, one of the top pollutants.
“The Supreme Court’s decision does not mean the end of President Biden’s climate agenda, but the administration will now have to quickly assess which regulatory actions it can still move forward on and which actions it must rethink or abandon,” said Kevin Minoli, formerly a senior official in the EPA’s Office of General Counsel.
This is very likely not the last ruling around Climate Policy that we will see. It is said that there remain some “major questions” regarding other climate policies including but not limited to Sackett v. EPA which is a case that explores, “the question of what exactly are considered "waters of the U.S." That term, and how it's applied, are important because the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA use it when deciding what falls under their purview in the Clean Water Act. Both are also working on rules to refine the definition.”
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/30/1108578286/with-time-ticking-for-climate-action-supreme-court-limits-ways-to-curb-emissions
https://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2021/06/10/the-key-to-reaching-bidens-new-climate-goal-an-enforceable-clean-electricity-standard-that-slashes-pollution/
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-30/supreme-court-curbs-epa-s-climate-authority-in-blow-to-biden?sref=0IejgNtz
