US Supreme Court limits government powers to curb greenhouse gases, upending Joe Biden’s climate agenda
- Conservative justices drive 6-3 ruling that curbs EPA ability to regulate power plant emissions
- US President Joe Biden calls its a ‘devastating decision’, but vows to tackle climate change
The US Supreme Court ruled that the government’s key environmental agency cannot issue broad limits on greenhouse gases, sharply curtailing the power of President Joe Biden’s administration to battle climate change.
By a majority of 6-3, the high court found that the Environmental Protection Agency did not have the power to set sweeping caps on emissions from coal-fired power plants, which produce nearly 20 per cent of the electricity consumed in the United States.
Thursday’s decision sets back Biden’s hopes of using the EPA to bring down emissions to meet global climate goals, set in 2015 under the Paris Agreement on climate change.
It was a significant victory for the coal mining and coal power industry, which was targeted that same year for tough limits by the administration of then-president Barack Obama in an effort to slash carbon pollution.
It also marked a victory for conservatives fighting government regulation of industry, with the court’s majority including three right-wing justices named by former president Donald Trump, who had sought to weaken the EPA.
Biden called it “another devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards”.