Responding to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the power of federal agencies to regulate power plant emissions, President Joe Biden vowed to continue to find ways to regulate pollution.
“I have directed my legal team to work with the Department of Justice and affected agencies to review this decision carefully and find ways that we can, under federal law, continue protecting Americans from harmful pollution, including pollution that causes climate change,” the president said in a White House Statement.
The Supreme Court issued a decision on June 30, declaring that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not have the authority to set carbon emissions standards for existing U.S. power plants, according to CNBC. The court noted that Congress is the only legislative or administrative body with the jurisdiction to create cap-and-trade regulations to curtail emissions and promote the use of renewable energy sources. West Virginia v. EPA was decided in a 6-3 ruling.
In a June 30 Tweet, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said, “Today SCOTUS ruled in our favor in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a critically important case that we joined West Virginia in filing that pushes back on the Biden EPA’s job-killing regulations.”
The Associated Press reported that the Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA is consistent with the “conservative majority’s skepticism of the power of regulatory agencies.” The decision to maintain Congress’ regulatory authority on environmental issues reflects the majority’s underlying originalist tendency to keep legislative powers within the legislative branch of the federal government.
Chief Justice Roberts writes in the majority opinion: “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,’” but “a decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”
According to The Heritage Foundation, the specific issue at hand in West Virginia v. EPA was the “Clean Power Plan,” an EPA policy that purportedly had the authority to cap carbon emissions across the “entire electricity sector.”
Clean Power Plan regulation attempted to incentivize the shift to renewables and make it far more economically difficult to run coal- and gas-based power plants. Heritage notes that roughly 60% of American power comes from gas- and coal-based power plants.
“The EPA put itself squarely in a position to set energy and economic policy under the guise of environmental policy while enjoying nearly unfettered power to do so,” Katie Tubb of The Heritage Foundation wrote.
