Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling on climate action last week, Professor David Driesen discussed how the ruling on climate regulation could stunt the EPA’s ability to prevent climate change from worsening in The Hill.
The case, focusing on the scope of the EPA’s powers to enact climate regulations, was brought by several states and led by West Virginia, seeking to preemptively block the Biden administration from setting standards that are likely to result in a shift away from coal plants and towards those powered by cleaner energy sources.
Driesen said he worried that the decision could lead the court to try to explicitly block the closure of power plants.
“If they put in broad rhetoric about not closing power plants and not restructuring industry, that could make it not impossible but very hard to use EPA regulation to address global climate disruption effectively,” Driesen explained.