EPA’s Power To Regulate VA's Carbon Emissions Curbed By Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, DC — The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, representing a significant blow to federal officials' efforts to fight climate change.

The court ruled in favor of a handful of Republican-led states and coal companies and said the EPA lacked the authority under the Clean Air Act to shift the nation’s energy production away from coal-powered plants to cleaner alternatives such as wind and solar power. The conservative majority on the court voted 6-3.

With the ruling, any future regulations from the agency to limit carbon emissions must be limited to specific power plants and not a general push for utilities to transition to renewable energy sources.

"The Supreme Court just gutted the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon pollution," Environment Virginia said in a statement Thursday. "This is a huge blow to the EPA's ability to tackle climate change, and it comes when we already know that we don't have any time to lose."

In response to the court's ruling, the Southern Environmental Law Center, based in Charlottesville, said that “of all regions of the country, the South has the most to lose from unchecked climate change, and the most to gain from an economy that relies on clean energy.”

Since becoming governor in January, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has announced plans to withdraw the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, an effort to cut carbon emissions from the power sector in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, calling it a “bad deal” for consumers. In 2020, Virginia became the first southern state to join the RGGI.

The multistate compact aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through carbon allowances and capping carbon dioxide emissions. It also funds Virginia's Community Flood Preparedness Fund, a program supporting strategies to mitigate and prevent flooding.

Youngkin issued an executive order on Jan. 15 that directed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to draw up a report “re-evaluating the costs and benefits of participating in the RGGI.”

The report, released in March, concluded that RGGI is “a direct tax on households and businesses” and is raising the state’s electricity prices. Clean energy advocates countered that the report showed the regional carbon trading network helps states reduce emissions and can help Virginia meet its clean energy targets.

Youngkin's executive order also required the “DEQ to develop two regulatory proposals that would ‘repeal’ the underlying regulation”: an “emergency” regulation and an additional rule that would make the “emergency” regulation permanent.

After years of advances in Virginia on wind energy development, Youngkin decided not to join a partnership announced last week between the federal government and 11 East Coast states that aims to speed up offshore wind development. The 11 states listed cover the entire span of the nation’s East Coast from Maine to North Carolina, except for Virginia.

Eight of the governors involved in the partnership are Democrats, while three — Larry Hogan of Maryland, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire — are Republicans, Sarah Vogelsong reported Wednesday in the Virginia Mercury.

In his majority opinion on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed that a shift toward renewable energy “may be a sensible solution” to the climate crisis, but that such a mandate was too large to fall under the scope of the EPA and belonged to Congress or an agency acting within “a clear delegation” from the legislative branch.

Justice Elena Kagan accused the court of appointing itself the decision-maker on climate policy and stripping the EPA of the power granted to it by Congress in a dissenting opinion.

Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden announced a goal to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in half from 2005 levels by 2030 as well as transition to a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and a net zero emissions economy by 2050.

Energy production accounted for 25 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, and around 60 percent of the nation’s electricity was produced by burning fossil fuels, according to the EPA.

The legal battle dates back to the Clean Power Plan put forward by then-President Barack Obama’s administration, which would have required states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy production, mainly through a transition away from coal-powered plants.

That initiative was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2016 by a 5-4 conservative majority. Under then-President Donald Trump, the EPA repealed the Obama-era plan and put in place one in which the federal agency’s role was reduced.

A federal appeals court struck down the Trump-era plan last year, leaving no federal restrictions on carbon pollution from existing power plants. The new Supreme Court ruling prevents regulations similar to the Clean Power Plan from taking effect.

Despite a lack of carbon pollution regulations at the federal level, 24 states and the District of Columbia have adopted reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

Virginia has a statutory target to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy by 2045. Given that this transition will require a sustained effort over decades, some in Virginia worry that Youngkin will do all he can to undermine and delay the law’s implementation.

Other state-level measures being enacted across the United States include climate action plans, which are set or being developed in 33 states, and the adoption of renewable portfolio standards and clean energy standards, which are meant to help states transition to renewable energy sources.

A handful of states have enacted carbon pricing policies, mainly through cap-and-trade programs, which sets a cap on emissions for companies and organizations but allows them to purchase more capacity from companies that didn’t use their allotment.

Reporting and writing from The Associated Press was used in this story.