Forward with the Clean Power Plan
Republicans’ fear of Obama’s next Supreme Court nomination is founded. Four days before Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, the court released a 5-4 decision to stall Obama and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan with a stay. The decision fell along the expected ideological lines, with Justice Scalia’s decision leading the majority. During more than 30 years on the court, Scalia served as the most active detractor from any changes proposed by the EPA. Had his death fallen a few days prior or the debate a week later, the court would have been evenly split on the question, and no stay would have been issued.
The stay is a road block to the Clean Power Plan, but does not mean it cannot move forward. The plan has required that existing power plants curb their emissions by approximately one-third by 2030. A coalition of conservative states and industry opponents to the Clean Power Plan have said that the power plants will be forced to spend billions to comply, an unnecessary impediment to their progress, and convinced justices there was a fair chance it would be overturned once arguments against its passage are heard. This shows significant trust that the Clean Power Plan may not move forward.
The rules will not be implemented or enforced, a fact that prompted rejoice in conservative states reliant on conventional energy methods. The precedent of this decision is a potentially dangerous one, and left environmentalists surprised, confounded and distressed. The global decision in Paris this year were a source of hope for global action on climate change, for which a concerted international effort has not yet emerged.
The Clean Power Plan is in line with all past regulatory moves by the EPA and makes demands which are strong but by no means unreasonable. While the demands this time are more stringent than those that have been proposed (and denied by the Supreme Court before), there is cause for a constitutional interpretation to shift and lend more power to the EPA as our country and world moves towards more of an emergency reaction to global warming and climate change. The states which argue it serves as a governmental overreach without the endorsement of Congress are not entirely in the wrong, but their positions are entirely selfish.
The United States, which has developed a shameful habit of lagging on environmental jurisdiction and change, served as a source of hope during the COP21 discussions this past fall. Finally, some sort of stimulus seemed apparent on an executive level to keep pace with other developed nations in curbing carbon emissions in coming decades. This decision contradicts that, and could undermine what aimed to be a collaborative global effort to incite change, a call that has been made for decades by environmental activists as the only potential solution to cope with the changes we face. If the Clean Power Plan fails, the United States will have made clear (potentially once and for all) that environmental protection will never be a priority in our country’s practices.
This case, in addition to the ones which have been argued since Scalia’s death, illustrate all that hinges upon the next nominee. It is obvious that various constitutional interpretations can warrant or condemn the EPA’s efforts. If Obama is given the chance to nominate a liberal justice (and discussion in Congress is permitted and moves forward), then acts like these are likely to pass. The vote to pass the Clean Power Plan could easily shift to a 5-4 decision in the opposite direction; this could create a truly significant change in how environmental matters (and others which commonly divide upon party lines) will be resolved in coming years. This effect is difficult to overstate; anyone who wishes for the environment to be an issue we emphasize, in both words and action, ought to urge congressional action on the approval of a liberal Supreme Court nominee.