Listen to this article

19 States in the US have asked the Supreme Court to limit the EPA (Environment Protection Agency) authority to protect energy sector jobs. The Attorney General of West Virginia, Patrick Morrisey is leading the charge with support from attorneys general representing Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and the governor of Mississippi. They stressed that the DC Court of Appeals made a misjudgment and allowed the EPA to “de-carbonize” various sectors of the economy without congressional input based on Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. It targeted factories and power plants, as well as the millions of homes and small businesses that use natural gas for heat. Last week, Biden announced that his target of cutting US carbon emissions in half from 2005 levels by 2030.

Morrisey issued a statement on Friday and said, “This wildly expansive power to regulate factories, hospitals, and even homes has tremendous costs and consequences for all Americans, in particular, West Virginia’s Coal miners, Pipeliners, Natural gas producers, utility workers, and the countless others who depend upon their success”. He added, “If EPA lacks such expansive authority, as we argue, the Supreme Court should make that clear now. Any further delay will impose costs the energy sector can never recoup and force states to sink even more years and resources into an enterprise that is, at best, legally uncertain”. Point to be noted that Morrisey filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration in 2015 over the former president’s Clean Power Plan designed at cutting US carbon emissions from power plants.

The attorney general also accused the implementation of such a policy exceeded the EPA’s mandate. The EPA under former President Trump replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan in January 2019 and the appeals court dismissed the case without input from the Supreme Court. However, the DC Circuit Court vacated the 2016 ruling in January. They will be better positioned to fight Biden’s climate plan if the attorney general is successful in overturning the decision and in proving government overreach through the EPA. Friday’s petition said that the DC Appeals Court ignored the 2016 Supreme Court stay, which the coalition argues should have hinted that the high court viewed existing law as limiting EPA’s authority, not expanding it. A recent report from a working group (including several federal agencies) discovered that there is $37.9 billion in currently available funding across a wide variety of departments.