Supreme Court: EPA May Not Require Utilities to Switch from Coal to Renewables
In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the US Supreme Court ruled that EPA acted without authority in attempting to regulate carbon air emissions under certain 2016 Clean Power Plan regulations. EPA’s “system of emission reduction” in parts of the 2016 Clean Power Plan was based on requiring overall shifts in the type of electricity generation from “dirtier” to “cleaner” sources of energy. EPA essentially was deciding how much coal-based generation would be reduced in the future and then regulating from there. The coal sector and coal states urged the Court to narrow EPA’s reach to what EPA had done since 2015, which is regulate at the source or “inside the fence” for the particular source to operate more cleanly.
In determining that EPA went too far in mandating shifts in the type of generation, the Court relied on the “major questions” doctrine, where Congress must “speak clearly” when authorizing agency (EPA) action on significant issues. Chief Justice Roberts noted that EPA extracted “newfound power in the vague language” of the Clean Air Act, explaining that a law written over a half-century ago never permitted the EPA to require electric utilities to switch from coal to renewable forms of generation like solar and wind.
While the decision still allows the EPA to regulate power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions, EPA cannot mandate shifts to other types of energy generation in the regulatory framework. Under this ruling, because Congress did not “speak clearly,” EPA does not have the authority to balance the many “vital considerations of national policy implicated in the basic regulation of how Americans get their energy.”