WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a Biden administration regulation aimed at limiting planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants to remain in place as legal challenges play out.
The court denied a push from Republican-led states and industry groups to block the Environmental Protection Agency rule. One justice, Clarence Thomas, publicly dissented.
Two other conservative justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, said they thought challengers would likely win on at least some of their claims eventually, but the court didn’t need to block the rule now because compliance work wouldn’t have to begin until at least June 2025. The case could end up back before the high court relatively quickly.
Justice Samuel Alito did not take part.
The rule requires many coal-fired power plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions or shut down within eight years, though deadlines do not take effect for several years.
The power industry is the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change, and the rule is a key part of President Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050.
The high court earlier this month also left two other regulations in place for now, but other environmental regulations have not fared well before it in recent years. In 2022, the justices limited the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants with a landmark decision. In June, the court halted the agency’s air-pollution-fighting “good neighbor” rule.
Another ruling in June, overturning a decades-old decision known colloquially as Chevron, is also expected to make environmental regulations more difficult to set and keep, along with other federal agency actions. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited that ruling in court papers supporting the challenge in the coal plant case.
An appeals court had allowed the EPA’s new power plant rule to go into effect.
A panel of three judges — two nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama and one by Republican President Donald Trump — found that the states were not at risk of immediate harm because compliance deadlines do not take effect until 2030 or 2032.
Environmental groups have said the standards are reasonable, cost-effective and achievable, and well within the EPA’s legal responsibility to control harmful pollution, including from greenhouse gas emissions.
The National Mining Association argued that the rules threaten the reliability of the nation’s power grid by forcing the premature closure of power plants as demand for electricity surges.
The EPA projects the rule would yield up to $370 billion in climate and health net benefits and avoid nearly 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon pollution through 2047, equivalent to preventing annual emissions of 328 million gasoline-powered cars.
