Latest Breaking News
Showing Original Post only (View all)Supreme Court Curbs EPA's Climate Authority in Blow to Biden [View all]
Source: Bloomberg
The US Supreme Court restricted the Environmental Protection Agencys authority to curb greenhouse gases from power plants, siding with coal-mining companies and Republican-led states in a blow to President Joe Bidens climate-change agenda.
The 6-3 ruling interpreting the US Clean Air Act is likely to keep the administration from imposing the type of wide-ranging emissions-cutting plan the EPA tried to put in place when Barack Obama was president. It limits the agencys available tools amid increasing evidence that climate change is causing rising sea levels and more extreme weather patterns.
The majority said that, while the EPA can regulate power plant emissions, the agency cant try to shift power generation away from fossil-fuel plants to cleaner sources, as Obamas Clean Power Plan sought to do.
The courts three Democratic-appointed justices -- Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- dissented.
The ruling casts fresh doubt on Bidens pledge to reduce US emissions in half by the end of decade and his goal of a carbon-free electric grid by 2035. Hitting those targets will be impossible without regulations to stifle greenhouse gases from oil wells, automobiles and power plants, as well as tax incentives designed to spur clean energy, according to several analyses.
Read more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/supreme-court-curbs-epas-climate-authority-in-blow-to-biden?context=search&index=0