EPA’s Power To Regulate Wisconsin’s Carbon Emissions Curbed By SCOTUS

WISCONSIN — In a ruling Thursday, the Supreme Court limited the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, inflicting a blow to federal officials' work to fight climate change.

The court's conservative majority ruled 6-3 in favor of a handful of Republican-led states and coal companies, saying the EPA lacked authority under the Clean Air Act to shift energy production away from coal to cleaner alternatives like solar and wind.

In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' launched Executive Order No. 38 in 2019, which had a goal of bringing Wisconsin to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2050. Months later, in 2020, the governor's climate change task force released a report outlining what Wisconsinites can expect from climate change down the road.

The 2020 report argued Wisconsin communities have already suffered millions of dollars in damage from climate change. Extreme precipitation has led to flooding and storm surging and is promoting a wetter, warmer climate that may harbor swings in temperatures, the report said. Further, southern Wisconsin may be hit particularly hard with more extremely hot days per year by 2050, the report said.

Evers also launched a new plan in April, which was also focused on helping Wisconsinites with inflation. The plan aims to avoid the "adverse trajectory of the effects of a changing climate," according to a news release, and seeks to create a framework that ensures Wisconsin can transition toward cheaper, cleaner energy.

The recent supreme court ruling may take Wisconsin back a few notches, though, when it comes to climate change, some activist groups have argued in the wake of the decision.

350 Wisconsin, a local chapter of a nationwide climate change advocacy group, called the decision "a major blow."

"A summer of unprecedented heat is already impacting Wisconsinites, and such extreme weather will only worsen if the federal government is limited in its ability to restrict emissions," the group said in a statement.

Clean Wisconsin, another local climate advocacy group, said the ruling comes just as the window to avert the worst impacts of climate change is starting to close. Katie Nekola, the group's general counsel, called the decision "a textbook example of judicial activism."

"The Court has issued an opinion about a rule that doesn’t exist, in order to preemptively restrict the rule that the Biden administration is still drafting,” said Nekola in the news release.

Clean Wisconsin asserted that transitioning from coal and gas to renewables will save billions in health costs each year, not to mention its impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The group plans on continuing to work with the Biden administration for emissions rules, Nekola said in the release.

We Energies, one of the largest energy providers in Wisconsin, has already slated plans to eliminate coal from its generating capacity—although, with worries about the Midwest's energy supply in the years to come, the utility company has delayed the retirement of some coal generators.

The Supreme Court ruling effectively limits future EPA regulations to specific power plants, and prevents a more general push for a transition to renewable energy.

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed in the majority opinion 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.

Other state-level measures being enacted 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.