After strengthening the right to bear arms and after challenging the right to abort, the Supreme Court on Thursday severely limited the means available to the federal state to fight against greenhouse gases.
US President Biden is going to struggle to keep his promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court has just ruled on a point of law that denies the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to compel power companies to abandon hydrocarbon power plants in order to favor renewable resources.
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The Supreme Court takes no position against the energy transition. The court, in a 6 to 3 decision, simply asserts that the law in place, the “Clean Air Actof 1963, amended several times since, cannot serve as a basis for such fundamental decisions. She decides that it is up to Congress to specify by law the standards for the decarbonization of the American economy. In his view, the EPA was trying to arrogate considerable authority by extrapolating an obscure section of the law.
For lack of consensus between Republicans and Democrats in a very divided Congress, Joe Biden will not be able to quickly pass a new law on climate transition. The president has nevertheless committed since his installation in the White House, to reduce to zero the greenhouse gas emissions of American coal, fuel and gas power plants, by 2035. They are currently responsible for quarter of gas emissions in the United States.
Victory for the coal mining sector
The court’s ruling does not affect the agency’s authority to combat the same emissions from motor vehicles, or oil and natural gas producer facilities. “This decision risks damaging our ability to maintain clean air and fight climate change, but I will not give up on my efforts to use my legal authority to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis.commented President Biden. “The EPA will have to find other ways to circumvent the ruling and indirectly tackle carbon emissions, which is the only meaningful way to respond to the climate crisis.says Karen Sokol, law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.
The stop “West Virginia vs. EPArepresents a victory for the coal industry that the Biden administration has vowed to permanently marginalize due to carbon toxicity. Its scope may turn out to be even more substantial on other regulatory powers based on ambiguous laws.
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Already last year, the magistrates invalidated the authority of the “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” (CDC), federal organizations for monitoring diseases and infections. The latter had decreed that the Covid pandemic justified prohibiting the eviction of tenants who did not pay their rent. The Supreme Court ruled that the CDC was not mandated by Congress to regulate housing.
As with its decision last month to lift constitutional protections covering abortion, the Supreme Court is challenging the American left and gratifying conservatives. It affirms the superiority of popular representation, that is to say the Congress, on fundamental issues. In doing so, it invalidates the legal constructions that gave, sometimes to the courts, sometimes to federal agencies, powers that were not explicitly conferred on them.
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