Supreme Court to review EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases and address climate crisis

By Ariane de Vogue and Ella Nilsen, CNN

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case from Republican-led states and coal producers challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases and address the climate crisis.

The news comes as President Joe Biden’s EPA is crafting more stringent rules to limit emissions from power plants that produce electricity from fossil fuels, including coal and natural gas. The electricity sector accounts for 25% of US greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA.

Crafting strong environmental regulations is a key part of Biden’s climate agenda, in addition to a major climate bill the White House is hoping will pass Congress in the coming weeks. The EPA is also soon expected to issue new proposed regulations limiting methane emissions from oil and gas producers around the country.

The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case is another sign that the conservative majority is eager to seek limits for when Congress can delegate its authority to federal agencies.

In asking the court to take up the case, GOP-led states said a federal appeals court had granted the EPA “unbridled power” with “no limits” to mandate standards that would be “impossible for coal and natural gas power plants to meet.”

In a statement, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey — who leads a 19 state coalition — said he was “extremely grateful” for the court’s willingness to hear the case and that he believed a “significant portion” of the court “shares our concern that the DC Circuit granted EPA too much authority.”

“How we respond to climate change is a pressing issue for our nation, yet some of the paths forward carry serious and disproportionate costs for States and countless other affected parties,” Morrisey had written in court briefs.

The Biden administration had urged the justices not to step in at this juncture but to wait for the Biden EPA to complete its new clean air regulations.

David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the group would “vigorously defend EPA’s authority to curb power plants’ huge contribution to the climate crisis.”

“Coal companies and their state allies are asking the Court to strip EPA of any authority under the Clean Air Act to meaningfully reduce the nearly 1.5 billion tons of carbon pollution spewed from the nation’s power plants each year — authority the Court has upheld three times in the past two decades ” he said.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

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