by Erin Ryan, professor of law, Florida State University College of Law. Professor Ryan is the author of many scholarly works, including Federalism and the Tug of War Within (Oxford, 2012).
Last week, the Supreme Court controversially stayed implementation of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the cornerstone of the Obama Administration’s climate policy, while 29 states proceed with litigation against it. The CPP targets greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, which account for about a third of all U.S. carbon emissions. The rule is designed to reduce emissions from coal-fired plants, the dirtiest form of energy production, through a mix of stricter limits on existing plants, measures to increase energy efficiency, and other mechanisms that encourage producers to shift from coal to cleaner renewables and natural gas.
The CPP provides for substantial flexibility in how reduction targets may be attained within states, allowing
states to choose among various options proposed in the rule to come up with their own proposals or to opt for federal regulation in lieu of state oversight. Nevertheless, energy generators heavily invested in coal argue that implementation will require expensive changes.
It therefore surprised no one that states with the most coal-dependent economies, and with political leadership most sympathetic to the coal industry, are challenging the CPP in court. They argue, among other things, that EPA is unauthorized to regulate power plants this way, that the standards imposed by the rule did not take fair account of the costs of implementation, and that the final rule was insufficiently related to the proposed rule on which the public provided comment. Eighteen other states are supporting the rule, together with environmental groups and some power companies (including utilities in some states that are challenging the rule). Proponents contend that federal environmental laws have always targeted energy production, a primary source of regulated pollutants, and that the CPP legitimately follows from established legal authority, the regulatory record, and the proposed rule.
EPA always knew the CPP would be litigated, and so the lawsuits came as no surprise. But the Court’s move to stay the rule—before the issues had even been aired in open court—has apparently surprised everyone. The one-page order made no judgment on the merits of the case, but it suspends implementation of the rule while the litigation runs its full course, a process expected to take at least 18 months. The Court split along ideological lines in issuing the stay, with the five more conservative justices voting for the stay over opposition by the four more liberal justices. Just weeks earlier, the D.C. Circuit declined to issue the plaintiffs’ request for the stay, following uniformly applied federal judicial norms—until now.
ntion to make a nomination and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed his opposition, asserting that “[t]he American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
concerned with shifting blame than fixing the problem. As a result, months went by without residents knowing they were exposed to lead, a toxin that has