The Supreme Court has curtailed EPA’s power to regulate carbon pollution – and sent a warning to other regulators

  In a highly anticipated but not unexpected 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on June 30, 2022 that the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act.

  The ruling doesn’t take away the EPA’s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, but it makes federal action harder by requiring the agency to show that Congress has charged it to act – in an area where Congress has consistently failed to act.

Top 7 ways the Trump administration is attacking science at the EPA

  The core mission of the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, “is to protect human health and the environment.” As part of that mission, the agency works to ensure that “national efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best available scientific information.” During the first four months of 2017, President Donald Trump, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and their allies in Congress have proven themselves hostile to the role of science in achieving the agency’s mission but all too willing to heed the requests of polluters.

The People have spoken: Consistent support for the Clean Power Plan

  August 2016 marked the first anniversary of the finalization of the Clean Power Plan, or CPP, which provides a regulatory framework for states to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. It is a central tenet of the U.S. plan to achieve the climate goals established in last year’s Paris Agreement.

  Over the past year, opponents of the CPP—including coal companies, many electric utilities, and their elected allies—have left no stone unturned in their bid to undo these carbon pollution standards.

Greg Dotson: Appropriations showdown on climate change

  Earlier this year, in promoting its fiscal year 2016 budget resolution, the Republican majority on the House Budget Committee pronounced, “It is fundamentally unfair to our kids and grandkids for today’s policymakers to be so undisciplined and to ignore difficult decisions. Inaction is only making the hill we will eventually have to climb that much higher.” Was this an impassioned call for action on climate change, echoing the pope’s recent encyclical urging nations to act “so that future generations will not have to suffer the effects of our ill-advised delays?”