US: Supreme Court strips EPA of power to regulate emissions

The US Supreme Court has imposed limits on the federal government’s ability to implement sweeping regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, a decision that could undermine US President Joe Biden’s plans to tackle of climate change.

The court, by a 6-3 vote, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- or natural-gas-fired power plants. The NRA had this ability under the Clean Air Act to combat pollution. The Biden administration is currently working on new regulations.

A White House spokesman said the president’s legal team would study the decision and find ways to move forward. “President Biden will not hesitate to use the authorities at his disposal to protect public health and address the climate crisis,” he added.

In addition, the representative of the United Nations, Stefan Dujarric, called the decision “a setback in our fight against climate change”.

“But we must also remember that a global emergency such as climate change requires global responses and that the actions of a single state cannot and should not affect our climate goals,” he added.

The six conservative justices (three progressives dissented) overturned an earlier 2021 decision by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The appeals court had then struck down former President Donald Trump’s “Affordable Clean Energy” regulation, a section of which, called “Section 111,” had placed limits on the EPA’s power to regulate emissions from power plants. . Republican-controlled states such as West Virginia, a major coal producer, had asked the Supreme Court to limit the EPA’s powers. Coal producing companies and industries that use coal in their factories had also appealed against the Court of Appeal’s decision.

“Capping carbon dioxide emissions, at a level that would require a national phase-out of coal for electricity generation, could be an appropriate solution to today’s crisis. But it is not plausible that Congress gave to the EPA the authority to adopt such measures,” Justice John Roberts said in his ruling.

“Today, the Court stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of the ability Congress gave it to address the most pressing problem of our time,” countered Justice Elena Kagan, who dissented, noting that six of the planet’s warmest years have occurred in the past decade. .

While many Republican governors welcomed the decision, Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes called it “disastrous.”

In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled, by a narrow majority, that the NRA is responsible for regulating emissions of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change, since a law from the 1960s gave it authority to take measures to limit air pollution.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ