On Tuesday, February 9th, the conservative-led Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of the policies laid out in President Obama’s Clean Power Plan should be halted until the “legality” of this legislature could be determined. [1] The Plan, which was established in accord with the agreements made at the Paris Climate Talks, aims to cut the carbon dioxide emissions of existing power plants by one third by the year 2030. While states are not required to meet the regulations laid out until 2022, they were expected to present their plans for doing so to the EPA by this September. However, this forestalling of the Plan will set this process back indefinitely, and the U.S. will continue to make no efforts to nationally lower our greenhouse gas emissions. The arguments made against the Plan are based on the economic strain that the initiative will put on states whose economies depend largely on fossil fuel-generated power, and on the utility companies there in. To me, however, these arguments are still less substantial than the impact we are having on climate. There should be no misconceptions on the difficulty reducing carbon emissions will pose – it is not going to be an easy process, and everyone knows this, but the longer we delay the inevitably necessary, the more potential warming we generate, and the greater the impacts that will result from climate change.

Since this decision was made, one of the most outspokenly conservative Justices on the Supreme Court who supported the effort to stall any progress on climate change, Antonin Scalia, has died. His position must be filled by a presidential nomination that is approved by the Senate, and President Obama seems very much inclined to making the appointment, contrary to the Republican Senator’s wishes that he wait for the next President to make the appointment. [2] This leaves the fate of the Clean Power Plan in a very tenuous state, although the Court’s decision to stall it will continue to be upheld. The President may attempt to appoint a moderate Justice that has a better chance of being approved than a liberal, but it is very unclear what effect this would have on the Plan. The President could also go for broke and appoint a liberal Justice who will likely support the Plan, but it would not be unheard of or surprising for the Republican-dominated Senate to stall this process as well, leaving the Supreme Court with an even 8 Justices until the next President comes in to office. Only time will tell if things will get better or worse for the Clean Power Plan, but those of us who study the climate system are desperately hoping for the better, and fast.

Sources:

1. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/02/09/us/politics/ap-us-supreme-court-clean-air-lawsuits.html
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/politics/battle-begins-over-naming-next-justice.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region&region=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region&_r=0