Supreme Court decisions are slowing climate progress
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By: Akielly Hu
August 19, 2024
During its last session, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority dealt blow after blow to federal agencies’ authority to draft and enforce policies, including those aimed at mitigating climate change. Its decisions have already created upheaval for courts considering issues ranging from the approval of a solar project to vehicle emissions rules. This has upended the legal landscape for judges and for regulators, and could slow climate progress as a result.
The uncertainty has alarmed, but not surprised, legal experts who earlier this summer predicted that four rulings limiting federal authority could curtail the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies to limit pollution, govern toxic substances, and mitigate global warming.
“It’s going to throw climate policy into many years of litigating what these cases actually mean when applied to individual rulemakings,” said Deborah Sivas, an environmental law professor at Stanford University. “That’s not good for the energy transition that we actually need to go through.”
In its most consequential ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine, which has since 1984 granted federal regulators broad leeway to use their expertise to interpret ambiguities in the law. Another ruling effectively eliminated a six-year statute of limitations on lawsuits against federal regulations, opening the door to challenges against any policy regardless of how old it is. A lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission invalidated the use of in-house administrative law judges, jeopardizing a key enforcement mechanism used by more than a dozen agencies. And the conservative majority, ruling in Ohio v. EPA, blocked a federal smog reduction plan, a victory for polluters and conservatives who have long argued that EPA regulations create undue burdens.
To read the full article, click here:
https://grist.org/climate-energy/recent-supreme-court-decisions-are-already-slowing-climate-progress
