The U.S. Supreme Court has been on a tear lately, to put it mildly. It wasn't enough that the court's conservative majority upended a half-century of precedent by ending the constitutional right to abortion. It also expanded gun rights despite the ongoing trauma of mass shootings and gun violence.
The court followed that with a ruling that dealt a punishing blow to this nation's ability to combat climate change by curbing carbon emissions and shifting to renewable sources of power.
The ruling essentially holds that because Congress, in passing the Clean Air Act a half-century ago, did not explicitly give the Environmental Protection Agency that ability, it lacks that authority. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the agency had interpreted "newfound power in the vague language" of the Clean Air act even as he acknowledged the sensibility of the EPA's proposed action.
