The US Supreme Court limits Joe Biden’s ability to fight climate change

On Thursday, the very conservative US Supreme Court limited federal means to combat global warming, in a ruling that could further complicate regulatory efforts from the White House.

The high court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot enact general rules to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants, which produce almost 20% of the electricity in the United States.

The White House immediately denounced a “devastating” decision and called on Congress to “put the United States on the path to a cleaner and safer energy future.”

The sentence was adopted by the six conservative magistrates of the Court.

“To set a limit on carbon dioxide emissions at a level that would require a national renunciation of coal generating electricity could be a relevant solution to the current crisis. But it is not credible that Congress has given the EPA the authority to pass such a measure, ”Judge John Roberts wrote on behalf of the Conservative majority.

But his three progressive colleagues disassociated themselves from a considered decision “alarming”.

Republican support

“The Court deprived the Environmental Protection Agency of the power conferred on it by Congress to respond to the ‘most urgent problem of our time'”, wrote Judge Elena Kagan, recalling that in the last decade the country has known the hottest six years in its history.

Reflecting the divisions in American society on environmental issues, the decision was immediately welcomed by the Republican Party, hostile to any federal regulation and defender of fossil fuels.

“Today the Supreme Court is restoring power to the people,” said Senate leader Mitch McConnell, criticizing Democratic President Joe Biden for “waging a war on cheap energy” despite inflation.

But Democrats, like young congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, he called the decision “catastrophic“.

“Our planet is on fire and this extremist Supreme Court is destroying the federal power’s ability to fight back,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Dismayed, environmental advocacy organizations highlighted the growing gap between the United States and the rest of the world.

This ruling could lead “the United States to lag far behind (its) international partners, who are accelerating efforts to meet their climate commitments,” said Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

After his abortion sentence last week, This ruling represents a new change of course in the Supreme Court.

In 2007, the highest court ruled by a narrow majority that the EPA was competent to regulate gas emissions responsible for global warming, in the same way that a law from the 1960s gives it the power to limit air pollution. .

But that changed after former Republican President Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic hostile to any binding industry measures, appointed three judges to the court who cemented the current strong conservative majority in Beyond the EPA, this decision could limit the efforts of all federal regulatory agencies, including occupational safety and health (OSHA).

fears

“The court has taken steps to scrutinize the EPA but also all administrative agenciesIlya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, analyzed on Twitter.

As he said, “the court simply refused to let an executive agency decree its jurisdiction.”

Democrats fear that several regulations will be scrapped in the coming months.

this court “reactionary and extremist” it is taking “the country back to a time when industrial sharks had all the powers,” complained Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The file on which the Supreme Court’s decision is based originates from an ambitious “Clean Power Plan” to reduce CO2 emissions whose implementation fell to the EPA, but the project was blocked before its implementation.

In 2019 he released Donald Trump its own “affordable clean energy rule”limiting the scope of the EPA’s action, which has removed the possibility of reshaping the electricity production network.

After a federal court invalidated that version, several conservative states and the coal industry asked the Supreme Court to step in and clarify the EPA’s powers. Democrat Joe Biden’s government said it had no intention of reviving Barack Obama’s plan, so it asked the High Court to declare the file null and void.

Source: AFP

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