The recent "high-stakes argument" over greenhouse gas emissions before U.S. Supreme Court justices put President Joe Biden's climate change agenda in the spotlight and he should run with it, an environmental group said in a news release.
Oral arguments in the case "will spotlight the urgent need for Biden to take bold executive action to fight climate change," the Center for Biological Diversity said in a news release last month. The center quickly added that "the best outcome could be for the court to decline to decide the case at all."
"The Supreme Court should not decide the limits of phantom pollution rules that don't exist," Jason Rylander, an attorney at the Center's Climate Law Institute, said in the news release. "But no matter what the court does, President Biden still possesses significant authority to address the climate crisis. He needs to take bold action now, under all of our flagship environmental laws."
The Center for Biological Diversity is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona and maintains offices in eight U.S. states, in addition to Washington and Mexico.
Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in the case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on Feb. 28, three days after the center's news release was issued.
The case, a consolidation of three related lawsuits filed against EPA, arose in the wake of the Trump administration's repeal of the 2015 Clean Power Plan, along with its guidelines to states about carbon dioxide emissions limitations on power plants. In its place, the now former administration issued the Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE), which eliminated or deferred the previously guidelines.
A lower court vacated ACE, ruling it was arbitrary and capricious.
One of the challengers in the case, North American Coal Corporation, questioned whether EPA has any authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The question before the Supreme Court is whether EPA has "authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in virtually any industry, so long as it considers cost, non-air impacts and energy requirements?"
In its news release, the center said it filed a brief "with other groups in the case," arguing that the Supreme Court should decline to hear the case, "because it centers on an Obama-era power plant rule that never took effect."
The center also referred to its report, issued last month, that outlined "a suite of additional powers" Biden "could unlock to fight the climate crisis by declaring a national climate emergency."
"Using authorities under the National Emergencies Act, the Defense Production Act and the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, the president could halt crude oil exports, stop offshore oil and gas drilling, restrict international fossil fuel investment and rapidly manufacture and distribute renewable energy systems," the news release said.
On Feb. 25, the Center issued another news release responding to oral arguments by plaintiffs' attorneys urging the Supreme Court to declare limits to EPA's power over greenhouse gas emissions.
"It was grotesque to hear Big Coal's lawyers argue for tying EPA's hands on cutting climate-heating pollution, even as the world's scientists warn of a bigger, worsening swath of human suffering," Rylander said in the more recent news release. "No matter how the Supreme Court rules in this case, President Biden still has broad authority under an array of existing laws to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, restrict development of fossil fuels and accelerate a just, clean-energy transition. We’re out of time and the president must act boldly now."
