Justices agree to review EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases

[Elderberry]

SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 10/29/2021

In a term already defined by abortion and guns, the justices on Friday agreed to hear two more politically divisive disputes, involving the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases and the ability of states to defend a Trump-era immigration rule that the Biden administration has declined to defend.

Climate change regulation

The litigation over the EPA’s authority comes to the court in a quartet of environmental cases on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The D.C. Circuit vacated both the Trump administration’s decision to repeal the 2015 Clean Power Plan, which established guidelines for states to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and the Affordable Clean Energy Rule that the Trump administration issued in its place.

Urging the justices to hear the case, one of the challengers, the North American Coal Corporation, acknowledged that the issue of climate change and how to address it has “enormous importance,” but the company stressed that “[t]hose debates will not be resolved anytime soon.” What the court should resolve, it continued, “as soon as possible is who has the authority to decide those issues on an industry-wide scale — Congress or the EPA.” Unless the justices weigh in, the company warned, “these crucial decisions will be made by unelected agency officials without statutory authority, as opposed to our elected legislators.”

More: https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/10/justices-agree-to-review-epas-authority-to-regulate-greenhouse-gases/

[Smokin Joe]

It boils down to separation of powers. One branch, Constitutionally, is tasked with making the laws, another, with enforcing them.

Too many Executive Departments are doing both.