Federal Government’s Capability To Regulate “Carbon Pollution” To Be Litigated At Supreme Court Next Week

I’ll believe “carbon pollution” is dangerous when people like Biden stop putting out so darned much themselves

In EPA Supreme Court case, the agency’s power to combat climate change hangs in the balance

President Biden’s ambitious plans to combat climate change, blocked by an uncooperative Congress, face an equally tough test next week at the Supreme Court. With the court’s conservative justices increasingly suspicious that agencies are overstepping their powers, the case’s outcome could not only reshape U.S. environmental policy but also call into question the authority of regulators to tackle the nation’s most pressing problems.

First, it’s not a real problem. Second, Americans are way, way, way more concerned with things like high gas and energy prices, high food prices, housing, and so much more.

On Monday, the court takes up a years-long challenge from coal-mining companies and Republican-led states contesting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to mandate sweeping changes to the way the nation’s power sector produces electricity, the nation’s second-largest source of climate-warming pollution.

West Virginia v. EPA comes before a Supreme Court that’s even more conservative than the one that stopped the Obama administration’s plan to drastically reduce power plants’ carbon output in 2016.

“This will undoubtedly be the most important environmental law case on the court’s docket this term, and could well become one of the most significant environmental law cases of all time,” said Jonathan H. Adler, an environmental law expert at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

This has nothing to do with the environment, at least as argued, because this is not about mining, but, the release of CO2. And, granted, I’ve said many, many times that I would love to see coal replaced with other energy that’s reliable and affordable, because of the environmental damage.

Environmental advocates fear the Supreme Court’s conservative majority could limit the Biden administration’s ability to curb carbon pollution from power plants before any regulation is written, and leave the United States short of its climate goals at a time when scientists suggest drastic cuts in emissions are needed to avert dangerous warming. The president wants the U.S. power grid to run entirely on clean energy by 2035.

I expect the Brandon admin to lose this one, and, this is also what Leftists are concerned with

But this case could resonate beyond environmental issues, since the Supreme Court’s conservatives have become more and more skeptical of federal agencies exercising their authority on a range of fronts. Pointing to what is called the “major questions” doctrine, the justices are insisting that Congress specifically authorize agency action that touches on significant issues.

Reigning in the power of the federal government to simply do whatever they want whenever they want, in violation of their assigned powers, could take a bit hit, as could the Executive Branch simply inventing Reasons to do what they want from minor things in legislation.

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