Traffic moves along Highway 101 in 2022 in Mill Valley, Calif. The Biden administration’s effort to boost sales of electric vehicles while cutting emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles could face a tough test in the courts. Now the Supreme Court has imperiled that broad agenda — and possibly other climate and environment rules for decades to come.the government’s ability to regulate air pollution, water pollution and the greenhouse gases that are heating Earth.
Together, the decisions underscore how a multiyear campaign by industry and conservative groups is successfully weakening the power of the administrative state, and the EPA in particular. “We are a little further along today in our effort to dismantle the administrative state,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey Friday on X, adding, “Proud of my team for all of their outstanding work over the years to be a part of making this.”. He also appointed three Supreme Court justices — Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — who have generally expressed deep skepticism about the power of environmental agencies.
“The question is going to be, ‘Did Congress clearly intend to give EPA authority to force a fundamental shift in the transportation sector?’” Holmstead said. “And the answer may very well be that Congress can certainly do that itself, but there’s no indication that Congress intended to give EPA that power.”The way Thursday’s decision was made was unusual: The justices took up the case on an emergency basis while it is still playing out in the D.C. Circuit.
That could pose a major challenge for the agency in the absence of congressional action. The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were both enacted more than 50 years ago, and Congress has passed few other environmental measures since then, even as the science of climate change has significantly advanced.