Folded into the text of the climate, health care and tax bill that became law last week is language that may buttress a 2007 Supreme Court precedent underpinning EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The measure signed into law by President Joe Biden on Aug. 16 included multiple amendments to the foundational environmental law first passed in 1970. Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., said they were “the most significant changes since 1990.”
They label six types of greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride — as air pollutants under the act. While the Supreme Court has ruled the EPA has authority to regulate these gases as air pollutants, that authority to date has not been reflected in statutes.
