– A divided Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to halt enforcement of President Barack Obama’s sweeping plan to address climate change until after legal challenges are resolved.
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The court’s four liberal voices contested the decision to halt the emission rules, which would require the power sector’s carbon dioxide emissions to be slashed by at least 32 percent compared to 2005 levels by the year 2030.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey hailed the decision blocking the Environmental Protection Agency as a monumental victory, explaining that it prevents the EPA from enforcing its illegal and unprecedented Power Plan until the court challenge concludes.
The stay means that questions about the legality of the program will remain after Obama leaves office. If the utilities and states lose in that court, the delay would continue while they sought Supreme Court review. “Electric Utility Generating Units,”…is stayed pending disposition of the applicants’ petitions for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and disposition of the applicants’ petition for a writ of certiorari… Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagen and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. A final ruling from that court might not come for months and without the stay the administration’s plan would have caused even more destruction of untold numbers of jobs, skyrocketing electricity bills and the weakening of the nation’s electric grid.
The Obama administration said power plants wouldn’t face any deadlines to begin cutting emissions until 2022 at the earliest.
The challengers, whose ranks include Southern Co., Peabody Energy Corp., the largest U.S. coal-miner, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said companies and states alike already were having to prepare for the rule to take effect.
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Arguments in that case are set for the beginning of June. If that court rules quickly enough, the Supreme Court could consider the case in the nine-month term that starts in October.
