Liberals are understandably delighted that Congress has managed to repudiate the outcome of at least one major case the Supreme Court decided in June. Although it seems certain that no federal legislation will be passed to try to reinstate Roe v. Wade and abortion rights, the Democratic congressional majority has made a clear statement on environmental law in the case of West Virginia v. EPA.
In the court’s 6-3 decision, the conservative majority blocked climate regulation issued by the Environmental Protection Agency on the theory that Congress hadn’t made it crystal clear in the 1970 Clean Air Act that the agency had authority to make the national power system more climate-friendly. Now, as part of the blockbuster Inflation Reduction Act passed earlier this month, Congress has stipulated that the Clean Air Act does in fact extend to greenhouse gases.
This legislative provision can’t reinstate the Barack Obama-era EPA regulation the justices struck down. The Supreme Court’s decision is binding with respect to what the Clean Air Act meant before it was amended by Congress earlier this month. And under administrative law, an agency that has been found to have acted unlawfully has to go back to the drawing board and issue a new rule under the new authorization.
