WASHINGTON (AP) – Over the objections of the Biden administration, the Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider a climate change case that could limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The court also said it would hear a Republican-led immigration challenge.
The earliest the cases will be argued is 2022 and, as is typical, the high court did not explain its decision to take either case. Both are unusual, however, in that the Biden administration either has changed or said it will change the rules at the center of each case.
On climate change, the court will review the decision of a federal appeals court that struck down one of the Trump administration’s most momentous climate rollbacks. The Biden administration has said it is working on a replacement rule.
As a practical matter, the decision to review the ruling in the case will probably make it harder for the Biden administration to move forward with a new rule to regulate planet-warming carbon emissions from the power sector.
West Virginia, leading a coalition of 19 mostly Republican-led states, and coal companies told the high court in asking it to take the case that the appeals court’s ruling would give EPA almost unlimited authority to regulate in a way that would harm the coal industry.