Supreme Court EPA ruling could shift focus to Cooper's climate plan

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to limit federal agencies’ ability to regulate greenhouse gas puts pressure on state and local authorities to enact their own regulations to combat carbon emissions, environmental law experts say.

In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t have the power to cap the amount of planet-heating carbon pollution emitted by existing power plants, instead leaving that authority to Congress.

The laws under review in this case haven't been addressed in decades, with the last major amendment to the Clean Air Act in 1990. "Without the EPA to direct efforts at the national level, it will be harder and probably more expensive to address climate change in the long run," said NC State Policy professor Christopher Galik. Now, bipartisan environmental reform in Congress is unlikely, and without meaningful congressional action, state and local governments would act as the primary regulators.

The high court’s decision doesn’t have an immediate impact on North Carolina, environmental experts say, but it puts more focus on Gov. Roy Cooper’s climate plan. The January executive order, EO 246, calls for the state to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, boosting the goals for carbon reduction set in 2018.

“State action on climate change is more critical than ever and NC will keep building on our law that requires a 70% power sector carbon emission reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050,” said Gov. Cooper in a tweet posted Thursday.

“North Carolina is a great example that you can take action at the state level, addressing this problem,” said Frank Rambo, head of the clean energy and air program at the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The Supreme Court decision is a setback to the Biden administration’s environmental agenda, including the goal for the U.S. to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half over the next decade and for American power plants to be carbon neutral by 2035.

“Some [environmental] markers are being met just based on economic forces, but we don't know that those will continue to be met,” said Jen Richmond-Bryant, an N.C. State professor focusing on air pollution. “We can't say that's going to be met based on the goodwill of corporate America, so that means there has to be some boundary to make sure that's happening and regulation is how to do that.”

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion on the case, saying the EPA’s regulation would force a nationwide transition away from coal and that “a decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself.” The majority opinion was joined by the court’s other five conservative members.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent, saying that the court’s decision “strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to ‘the most pressing environmental challenge of our time.’” She called the decision “frightening.”

Fossil fuel-fired power plants are the second largest source of pollution in the U.S. behind transportation, according to the EPA. The U.S. is also a top producer of greenhouse gasses, second only to China, making it a key player in the global effort to fight climate change.

Legal experts say the decision could have wider implications to other federal agencies’ ability to impose regulations.

“If the court is going to require a Congress to make many more specific choices about how to regulate very broad, complex, rapidly changing issues, then it really does change how Congress may have to write laws in the future, and our ability to respond to new information quickly,” said Jonas Monast, a professor at the UNC School of Law.

The case is the result of a years-long effort by Republican attorneys general led by West Virginia, a major coal producer, funded by coal companies and industry groups.

The Supreme Court was reviewing a 2015 EPA directive to coal power plants to reduce production or transition to clean energy alternatives under the landmark 1970 Clean Air Act. But the Obama administration’s order, called the Clean Power Plan, was never implemented after it was blocked by the Supreme Court and repealed by the Trump administration in 2016. Since then, there hasn’t been an EPA standard on carbon pollution for existing power plants.