A U.S. Supreme Court argument Monday has the potential to give conservatives a new lever to slash the power of federal regulatory agencies with ramifications that reach far beyond the environmental issues at hand.
Coal-mining companies and Republican-led states are seeking sharp limits on the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants. That would jeopardize President Joe Biden’s pledge to halve those emissions by the end of the decade.
More broadly, the case could produce a defining moment for the movement to rein in the so-called administrative state, a project some legal conservatives say is as vital as overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling. They say unaccountable regulators are usurping a role the Constitution entrusts to Congress.
