The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday imposed limits on the federal government's authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants in a ruling that will undermine President Joe Biden's plans to tackle climate change.
The court's 6-3 ruling restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- and gas-fired power plants under the landmark Clean Air Act anti-pollution law. Biden's administration is currently working on new regulations.
The justices overturned a 2021 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that had struck down Republican former President Donald Trump's Affordable Clean Energy rule. That regulation, which the Biden administration has said it has no intention to retain, would impose limits on a Clean Air Act provision called Section 111 that provides the EPA authority to regulate emissions from existing power plants.
The decision will constrain the EPA's ability to issue any regulations on power plants that push for an ambitious a national shift in energy policy toward renewable sources. As such, the ruling will hamstring the Biden administration's ability to curb the power sector's emissions - representing about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gases.
Writing in dissent, liberal Justice Elena Kagan said the court had chosen to hobble Biden's climate agenda before the administration has even issued its rulein the face of the statute Congress wrote," Kagan added. In doing so, the court "deprives EPA of the power needed - and the power granted - to curb the emission of greenhouse gases."
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