As of: 06/30/2022 6:55 p.m
The US Supreme Court has limited the Biden administration’s powers to fight climate change. The Supreme Court ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency cannot set CO2 limits for coal-fired power plants.
Setback for US President Joe Biden in the fight against climate change: The US highest court has weakened the US government’s ability to advance its environmental policy. The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA does not have the power to set sweeping rules and regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA is thus limited in limiting carbon emissions from power plants. With a conservative majority of judges, the panel decided that the Clean Air Act did not give the Environmental Protection Agency broad powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The decision was made by a vote of six to three.
EPA powers under scrutiny
Eighteen Republican-majority US states and coal companies challenged sweeping EPA powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the Supreme Court. The dispute goes back to the tenure of ex-President Barack Obama and was directed against a law that is no longer in force in its original form.
Controversy began over the EPA’s authority to compel power plants to reduce their pollution. It was about states needing to reduce emissions from electricity generation, primarily by moving away from coal-fired power plants. However, the project petered out. Following a lawsuit from West Virginia and others, the Supreme Court blocked the plan in 2016 by a narrow five-to-four majority.
Legal battle between Obama and Trump
The litigation continued nonetheless. After Obama’s successor Donald Trump took office, the EPA drafted a new plan that severely limited the government’s role on the issue. 22 mostly Democratic US states filed complaints against the new version. An appeals court ruled against repealing the Obama plan and simultaneously against the new plan while the administration worked out a new version. A proposal is expected towards the end of the year.
However, the project is now virtually obsolete: the reductions targeted by the Obama plan by 2030 have already been achieved by shutting down hundreds of coal-fired power plants. Her business was no longer profitable.
US power generation to be CO2-free by 2035
It’s now much more about how much power federal agencies that report to the government, like the EPA, have. Currently, Biden can try to regulate pollution through such federal agencies. However, this is now made more difficult.
As one of his first official acts, Biden ordered the United States to return to the international climate agreement. Accordingly, the USA should generate electricity without carbon dioxide emissions by 2035 and reduce their CO2 emissions to zero by 2050 at the latest.
He also announced that by 2030 the United States intends to at least halve its emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases compared to 2005. However, the implementation of these goals is a problem.