FILE - The Supreme Court is seen at dusk in Washington on Oct. 22, 2021. The Supreme Court is hearing a case its conservative majority could use to hobble Biden administration efforts to combat climate change. In arguments Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, justices are taking up an appeal from 19 mostly Republican-led states and coal companies over the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
The court took on the case even though there is no current EPA plan in place to deal with carbon output from power plants, a development that has alarmed environmental groups. They worry that the court could preemptively undermine whatever plan Biden's team develops to address power plant emissions. Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey, speaking at a recent event in Washington, cast the power plant case as about who should make the rules. “Should it be unelected bureaucrats, or should it be the people’s representatives in Congress?" Morrisey said. West Virginia is leading the states opposed to broad EPA authority.
The power plant case has a long and complicated history that begins with the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. That plan would have required states to reduce emissions from the generation of electricity, mainly by shifting away from coal-fired plants. New York, 21 other mainly Democratic states, the District of Columbia and some of the nation's largest cities sued over the Trump plan. The federal appeals court in Washington ruled against both the repeal and the new plan, and its decision left nothing in effect while the new administration drafted a new policy.