The Supreme Court limited the ability of the EPA to fight climate change in a landmark ruling. But regulators still have many tools in their arsenal.
Steam rises from the cooling towers of the coal-fired power plant at Duke Energy's Crystal River Energy Complex in Crystal River, Florida, U.S., March 26, 2021. Dane Rhys | Reuters On Thursday, the Supreme Court changed the rules of the game in the race to limit global warming by constricting the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to mandate carbon emissions. Specifically, the court ruled in West Virginia v. EPA that it was an overreach for the EPA to dictate that power generation be shifted from one source, say, from coal to wind or solar, declaring such a mandate should only come from Congress. "There is little reason to think Congress assigned such decisions to the Agency," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the 6-3 decision, which was joined by the other conservative members of the court. "The basic and consequential tradeoffs involved in such a choice are ones that Congress would likely have intended for itself." The decision relied on a recent framework called "the major questions doctrine," which argues that governmental agencies are there to execute the will of the Congress and its elected leaders, not to decide those matters themselves. By regulating such massive components of the economy as how power is generated, the EPA was overreaching, the ruling said. "The Constitution does not authorize agencies to use pen-and-phone regulations as substitutes for laws passed by the people's representatives," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion. Justice Elena Kagan wrote an excoriating dissent arguing that it's dangerous to take any power away from the EPA just when the United States — and much of the world — is missing its decarbonization targets. "If the current rate of emissions continues, children born this year could live to see parts of the Eastern seaboard swallowed by the ocean," Kagan wrote. "Whatever else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change. And let's say the obvious: The stakes…