The latest Supreme Court ruling is a major setback for President Joe Biden, who has committed America to deep cuts in its carbon emissions – a quarter of which come from burning coal and gas for electricity.
Justices sided 6-3 against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The same conservative judges which, last week, voted down the Roe vs Wade ruling on abortion rights in America.
President Biden had been banking on federal powers through the EPA to curb pollution from power plants.
The case brought against the EPA by West Virginia, along with 17 other coal producing states and two coal companies, was about whether the EPA could regulate pollution beyond the “fenceline” of a given power plant using the US Clean Air Act.
The court has ruled it can’t, arguing carbon dioxide, while a greenhouse gas, is not “toxic” and therefore not something the EPA has the power to regulate.
Because limiting CO2 emissions could also impact the US economy, the court went further.
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It questions whether any federal regulator has the power to intervene in such “major questions”.
And it’s this legal opinion that could have major and long lasting consequences – possibly affecting other environmental regulations, even checking the powers of other government regulators.
The problem now for the Biden administration is finding another way to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Previous attempts to pass climate change laws have been blocked by conservatives in Congress. Now the regulatory route is closed off too.
The ruling will also diminish US standing at global climate talks. The Biden administration has a lot of foreign policy muscle to try and accelerate carbon reductions globally, but how many smaller economies will trust America’s lead if it can’t get its own carbon reduction house in order?
But today’s decision doesn’t completely derail climate action in the US.
Coal use in the US has been falling steadily for years, even under the last president who campaigned under the banner “Trump digs coal”. The reason for that, of course, is that renewable energy – particularly solar and wind- is now cheaper than building a new fossil-fuel power plant.
It’s significant that not one US electricity generation company opposed the EPA’s CO2 regulating powers. In fact some utilities supported US-wide caps on fossil fuel emissions as the fairest way to manage the inevitable transition to renewables.
What’s more, the Supreme Court opinion only applies to the federal environment regulator. Just like with laws on abortion, individual US states can limit pollution in any way they like.
Twenty-one US states have already signed net-zero targets into law which requires rapid action on fossil fuel emissions.
Today is a historic victory for US conservatives against “regulatory overreach”. But history is almost certainly against the fossil fuel industry that many of them work so hard to defend.
