Environmental Project
U.S. Supreme Court ruling ‘a huge blow’ to efforts to combat climate change
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A U.S. Supreme Court decision issued Thursday limits the ability for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement measures to combat climate change.
In a 6-3 ruling, the high court ruled that Congress did not give the EPA the authority to devise emission caps “based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan” when it passed the Clean Air Act. This ruling has broad implications, according to Andrew Twinamatsiko, an associate director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law. In a statement following the decision, he said the ruling “is a huge blow to any hope of meaningful effort to combat climate change.”
“With a stroke of a pen, the Court has upended the regulatory framework upon which Congress and federal agencies have relied for almost a century to adopt and implement federal legislation,” he said. “Through the Clean Air Act, Congress authorized the EPA to set guidelines to reduce emissions, in line with its long reliance on regulatory agencies. The EPA, as directed by Congress, then adopted the Clean Power Plan in 2015.