The Supreme Court’s Latest Decision Is a Blow to Stopping Climate Change

From the Supreme Court's majority opinion:

> a decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.

Honestly it's hard to see how that position is unreasonable. If Congress wants the EPA to have this power, let them vote to give it. If Congress does not want the EPA to have this power, then the EPA shouldn't attempt to exercise power they don't have. There's really no other solution if we're going to have a representative government.

Unpopular opinion: any reasonable policies and restrictions are always compromises between the 2 polar opposite extremes. For example, killing all humans on Earth would completely stop climate change, but the price is unreasonably high. As the opposite extreme, reducing food waste hardly has any disadvantages, but is not sufficient on its own to stop the warming.

Compromises are found iteratively - moving the lever too far creates pressure on the opposing side, and the regulation changes back.

Globalization eliminated the feedback loop. Each time the West hardens environmental standards, a some "dirty" production just moves to less developed countries, along with the jobs, knowledge and culture for achieving things. That CO2 is still emitted overseas, but we conveniently turn a blind eye to it, arguing whether we should have shorter showers or ban plastic straws. Now it's biting us hard, since it turned out those countries have much less political stability, so as the shit finally hit the fan, we suddenly have a shortage of everything.

Maybe, just maybe, having the emissions managed on the state level will let different states explore different potential trade-offs between being green and being dysfunctional, and we can hopefully find a better compromise that takes a more complete picture into consideration.

Since this keeps popping up on the front page and nobody seems to understand, here is the list of criteria air pollutants: https://www.epa.gov/criteria-air-pollutants/naaqs-table

As noted in the above link, Congress from time to time amends the Act to update the list, which was last done in 1990. That's all it takes: an amendment to the Act, passed by Congress. They can and have done this before, and yes, even with "climate deniers" signing off on it. The sole reason it hasn't been amended since then is because of the increased practice of doing omnibus bills and each group adding unreasonable expenditures and pet projects to otherwise uncontroversial legislation. How that gets stopped I have no idea, since the only legislators I am aware of who oppose that sort of thing get lambasted by hyper partisan media and the voters who gobble up that propaganda.

It's a blow to the whole planet —we're all stuck here— but I've got to wonder how much more of these anti-federal decisions the Union can take.

It's not just bad that another state might harm the same environment you're trying your hardest to protect, they might start to outcompete methods of doing things cleaner, costing local jobs, green mindshare and votes.

A progressive succession seems more likely every day.

This decision simply told the EPA that it needs specific authorization to engage in a sweeping restructuring of the country’s power generation mix to address climate change, and can’t rely on its existing authority to tell coal plants to install particulate scrubbers.

This is a huge problem warranting an apoplectic reaction because everyone knows Congress won’t do that. In fact, voters are about to hand Congress back over to the GOP because they’re mad about paying $5/gallon for gas. The vast majority of Americans want to address climate change, but won’t pay even $10/month extra on their electric bill to do so: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-.... Having Congress vote to raise everyone’s energy costs is a total non-starter.

The unstated subtext to all this is that, to address climate change, we need to bypass democracy and impose sweeping changes through unelected bureaucrats and boring administrative proceedings nobody pays attention to. And it’s quite revealing who thinks that’s a good idea and who thinks it’s a bad idea.

The best court money can buy!

This radical activist court is going to continue delivering major right-wing victories for the foreseeable future and there's absolutely nothing that can be done to stop them. Every right-wing dream will become reality. I'm having a hard time envisioning what this country will look like in say 10 years. The America as it was known in the 20th century certainly won't exist.

People need to not be jumping to conclusions based on the article title and actually look at the details of the case in question and the history of the case. You need to look at the reasoning used, not whether you personally like the ultimate decision or not.

Because this bill was stayed by Supreme Court, removed by Trump, and then replaced by a new interpretation put in place by the Trump EPA, this interpretation in question has basically never been in place in the some 12 years since it was passed.

Wikipedia has a good summary of the events leading up to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_v._EPA

> The case centers on language of Section 7411(d) of Title 42 of the United States Code[2] authorizing the EPA to regulate emissions from existing power plants, which when amended and signed into law in 1990 mistakenly included contradictory language from both the House and Senate's version of the bill that never was reconciled, leaving the interpretation to the EPA.

> The suit stems from a 2015 Obama administration EPA rule, the Clean Power Plan, based on a statutory interpretation of section § 7411(d) towards meeting the Paris Agreement in carbon dioxide emissions reductions. The Clean Power Plan was challenged by several states and coal industry companies, and stayed by order of the Supreme Court. With the Trump administration, the EPA repealed the Clean Power Plan in favor of the less-aggressive Affordable Clean Power rule in 2019 based on a different interpretation of § 7411(d), and the case against the Clean Power Plan rendered moot. Several other states and health and environmental groups challenged this new rule, and the District of Columbia Circuit Court ruled in January 2021 that the Affordable Clean Power rule was arbitrary and capricious and misinterpreted § 7411(d), vacating this new rule.

> Several of the states that first challenged the Clean Power Plan as well as coal industry-related companies challenged the D.C. Circuit's ruling on their analysis of the § 7411(d) and the EPA's authority granted by it, concerned that the Circuit's ruling would give the EPA far broader powers on emissions regulation. West Virginia v. EPA represents a consolidation of four petitions that the Supreme Court certified to review the D.C. Circuit's decision.

> The court issued its 6-3 opinion on June 30, 2022, ruling that regulation of power plant emissions on a national scale fell within the major questions doctrine, and within that, Congress did not grant the EPA authority to regulate emissions based on generation shifting mechanisms, which would have invalidated the Clean Power Plan. The EPA may still continue to regulate emissions through emissions reduction technologies.

And as for the meaning of that "major questions doctrine".

> The major questions doctrine is a rough analogue to the nondelegation doctrine, where the Supreme Court has held in recent years that in order for them to do so, Congress must have clearly authorized agencies to regulate issues of national significance.[14] When Congress fails to comply with this clear statement rule, the courts infer that Congress did not intend to empower the agency.

I'm not clear exactly how to interpret this personally.

Biden's climate change agenda has actually increased CO2 emissions. The thing is, natural gas has twice the energy in it per C atom than coal does. But Biden's regulations have targeted ng, which means that more filthy coal gets burned instead.

The answer is not targeting coal or ng. It's targeting the quantity of C emitted into the air. The very best way to do this is to tax the C in fuels that get burnt.

Then it is not necessary to have all sorts of regulations about what can be burned, etc. Just tax the C. The market will then sort it out.

Legitimate question: How can US measures stop climate change if many other countries are planning to construct and operate hundreds of coal plants for electric generation?

Yes, they essentially nuked Chevron deference through this decision, an extremely pro-voter and pro-transparency move.

Good.

Edit: I'm contextualizing this opinion through a legal lens, pointing to what it really does. From now on, Congress will have to pass laws (e.g. Do Their Jobs) to pass environmental legislation, instead of relying on the bureaucratic executive branch.

Also expressing that this is good, which is a personal opinion, but I think I'm providing value here.

Perhaps this is good to change things up and see what other solutions are possible to address climate change. EPA does not have the will of the people or Congress, which detracts from its powers and potential impact. EPA may not be geared to address climate change or large energy-economy problems - just look at the current situation - whatever they are doing is not working. They are good at pollution mitigation and rule making. Climate change solutions may not be helped by rules or EPA type measures. Instead they require environments amenable to systematic energy transition: low on regulation, low on entry barriers to innovation, low on rules and policies, financially punishing to old solutions. Climate action is techno-economic challenge the EPA might not be suited for.