Hard blow to Greta Thunberg: The Supreme Court takes away from the EPA the possibility of putting CO2 ceilings for the production of electricity
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the EPA does not have the authority to set standards on potentially greenhouse gas emissions for existing power plants. The EPA's ruling, delivered by a majority of 6 to 3, ruled that Congress, not the Environmental Protection Agency, has this power.
The court ruling concerns the federal government's authority to set standards for planet-warming pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, from existing power plants, under the famous Clean Air Act.
The decision represents an important setback for the Biden administration's agenda on combating climate change, in particular for the goal of eliminating carbon emissions from power plants by 2035 and halving the country's emissions by the end of the decade.
The case stems from the 2015 EPA directive on coal-fired power plants to reduce production or subsidize alternative forms of energy. The order was never implemented because it was immediately challenged in court.
According to the EPA, fossil fuel power plants are the second largest source of pollution in the United States after transportation. The United States is also the second largest producer of greenhouse gases after China, making it a key player in global efforts to combat climate change.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the case, known as West Virginia v. The Environmental Protection Agency, which was joined by the other five Conservative members of the Supreme Court. West Virginia is one of the US states most dependent on coal production for energy purposes.
Roberts wrote, "There is little reason to think that Congress has assigned the EPA such decisions" on the regulations in question, although the agency believes that "Congress has implicitly instructed it, and only you, to balance the many vital national policy considerations involved in deciding how Americans will procure energy ”.
Limiting carbon dioxide emissions to a level that would force a nationwide transition from using coal for electricity generation may be a "reasonable solution to the crisis of the day," Roberts wrote, "but it is not plausible that Congress gave the EPA the authority to adopt such a regulatory framework on its own. "
He added: "A decision of this magnitude and consequence rests with the Congress itself, or with an agency that acts on the basis of a clear delegation from that representative body." Therefore, the decision does not exclude the possibility that limits are set on CO2 emissions by power plants, but this choice must be made by the legislative power, that is, by the congress and cannot be imposed only by a government and administrative body. Frankly, a lesson in democracy to a Europe where, in this field, all decisions have been allowed to be taken by the Commission without any real democratic discussion.
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The article Hard blow to Greta Thunberg: The Supreme Court takes away from the EPA the possibility of putting CO2 ceilings for the production of electricity comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/duro-colpo-a-greta-thunberg-la-corte-suprema-toglie-allepa-la-possibilita-di-mettere-tetti-al-co2-per-la-produzione-di-energia-elettrica/ on Thu, 30 Jun 2022 17:15:07 +0000.