The conservative court’s 6-3 ruling restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- and gas-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act anti-pollution law.
Without broad authority to carry out a nationwide shift from coal generation to cleaner sources like wind and solar, the EPA may focus on individual plants, setting new efficiency rates that could force the dirtiest plants to shutter. Karen Sokol, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, agreed: “The agency is going to have to work around and dance around hitting carbon head-on, which is really the only meaningful way to respond to the climate crisis.Biden said in a statement that his administration was reviewing the Supreme Court ruling and studying its options.