Rogers pleased with Supreme Court ruling on EPA powers

Jul. 1—Another key U.S. Supreme Court decision came down Thursday, limiting the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) powers, and Somerset's own Congressman Hal Rogers expressed his approval in a statement later that day.

"The Supreme Court has taken monumental action in recent days to get this nation back in alignment with our Constitution," said Rogers, the longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's Fifth Congressional District, the coal-heavy region of eastern Kentucky.

"For years, I warned that the Environmental Protection Agency was overstepping its boundaries, nearly regulating our coal industry out of business in the Appalachian region, sending thousands of coal miners to the unemployment line, and implementing stringent emission standards without the power to do so," he continued. "The court's ruling now requires the EPA to have 'clear congressional authorization' before taking action on carbon emissions, ending the unregulated strangle-hold that unelected bureaucrats have had on our nation's energy sector for years.

"The Supreme Court's ruling is an overdue victory for Kentucky and the American people that could bring relief in energy costs when we need it the most," added Rogers.

By a 6-3 vote, the highest court in the land said that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming.

"Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible 'solution to the crisis of the day,'" Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion for the court.

But Roberts wrote that the Clean Air Act doesn't give EPA the authority to do so and that Congress must speak clearly on this subject.

"A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body," he wrote.

In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the decision strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to "the most pressing environmental challenge of our time."

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the legal challenge to EPA authority, said the "EPA can no longer sidestep Congress to exercise broad regulatory power that would radically transform the nation's energy grid and force states to fundamentally shift their energy portfolios away from coal-fired generation."

President Joe Biden Biden, in a statement, called the ruling "another devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards." He said he would "not relent in using my lawful authorities to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis."

EPA head Michael Regan said his agency will move forward with a rule to impose environmental standards on the energy sector.

The power plant case has a long and complicated history that begins with the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. That plan would have required states to reduce emissions from the generation of electricity, mainly by shifting away from coal-fired plants.

But that plan never took effect. Acting in a lawsuit filed by West Virginia and others, the Supreme Court blocked it in 2016 by a 5-4 vote, with conservatives in the majority.

With the plan on hold, the legal fight over it continued. But after President Donald Trump took office, the EPA repealed the Obama-era plan. The agency under Trump argued that its authority to reduce carbon emissions was limited, and it devised a new plan that sharply reduced the federal government's role in the issue.

New York, 21 other mainly Democratic states, the District of Columbia and some of the nation's largest cities sued over the Trump plan. The federal appeals court in Washington ruled against both the repeal and the new plan, and its decision left nothing in effect while the new administration drafted a new policy.

Nineteen mostly Republican-led states and coal companies led the fight at the Supreme Court against broad EPA authority to regulate carbon output.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.