Supreme Court: Agency May Regulate Green House Emissions

Huge Win For EPA and Environmentalists  

“It bears men­tion that EPA is get­ting almost every­thing it wanted in this case.” –Jus­tice Antonin Scalia In a much-anticipated deci­sion, the United States Supreme Court on Mon­day gave what has been trum­peted as a huge vic­tory for envi­ron­men­tal­ists when it largely val­i­dated the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency’s (EPA’s) plans to reg­u­late major sources of greenhouse-gas emis­sions such as power plants and fac­to­ries. How­ever, in a rather blis­ter­ing deci­sion writ­ten by Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, the Court said the agency had gone too far in inter­pret­ing its power. The court’s bifur­cated opin­ion (there were to majori­ties on dif­fer­ent parts: 7–2 and 5–4) on one hand crit­i­cized the agency for try­ing to rewrite pro­vi­sions of the Clean Air Act. Nonethe­less, the Court granted the Obama admin­is­tra­tion and envi­ron­men­tal­ists a big vic­tory by agree­ing that there are other ways for the EPA to reach its goal of reg­u­lat­ing the gases that con­tribute to global warming.

 You can read the full opin­ion here.