Supreme Court Clouds Future Of EPA Clean Air Rules, Threatening Climate Goals

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

72% : The massive investment in wind energy and solar power expected over the coming decade - along with energy storage, distributed generation and upgraded transmission facilities - to meet increased electricity demand coincides with economic growth, the decarbonization of the transportation sector, increasing digitalization of the economy, and the need for enhanced resilience of critical infrastructure in the face of extreme weather.
69% : New technologies, ESG imperatives of investors, state environmental regulations, and economic challenges for coal compared to gas and renewable energy: these factors will continue to drive the energy transition.
67% :Renewable energy has become big business and a driver of job growth despite tight labor markets.
65% : The share of the nation's total energy generation from non-hydro renewables like wind and solar power has soared from under 5% in 2012 to over 15% this year and continues to grow rapidly.
62% : The vast majority of new additions to power generating capacity over the past two years have been wind and solar power plants, a trend expected to continue.
60% : state-wide shifts to increase renewable energy capacity, to transition from fossil fuels to renewables, to reduce energy demand through enhanced efficiency, or to introduce a cap-and-trade mechanism or take other steps to reduce the carbon intensity of the power grid.
57% : Low natural gas prices, dramatically lower costs of building wind and solar power plants, and state and federal regulations and incentives for new renewable power investments (mainly renewable portfolio standards, tax credits, transmission upgrades, net-metering and storage) have combined to accelerate the "energy transition" away from coal to a cleaner power grid.
56% : It may also impact investments in energy assets, including renewable power, and create more regulatory uncertainty.
55% : Cost savings have been reinforced, like a tailwind, by public policies that favor decarbonization of the power sector and that have made renewable energy technologies cheaper, scalable and more reliable.
55% : The Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA could have pronounced effects on private investment in energy and climate-related green technology.
54% : shifting power plants from coal to natural gas, thus reducing GHG emissions across the state's mix of generation resources; and3.
52% : How the EPA can cause states to shift from polluting generation sources (like coal-fired power plants) to more efficient gas-fired cogeneration facilities and, especially, renewable energy depends in large part on how the Administration and Congress react to today's Court decision.
51% : plant-level changes to increase fossil fuel power plant efficiency by reducing the plant's heat rate (such as by co-firing gas with coal), and otherwise reducing plant-specific emissions;2.
50% : In 2007, in Massachusetts vs. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, as "air pollutants" under the Clean Air Act.
48% : In the meantime, on January 19, 2021, in American Lung Association, et al. vs. EPA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the Affordable Clean Energy Rule that the EPA under the Trump Administration had adopted in June 2019.
48% : Today, there is news of another government action threatening supply chains for imported solar equipment.
46% : The Court in West Virginia vs. EPA curtailed the second and third building blocks.
46% : The 2019 ACE Rule omitted many of the measures - like encouraging states to consider "cap and trade" carbon markets or shifting power generation from coal to natural gas and from fossil fuels to wind and solar power and other renewable sources - that were key parts of the President Obama's 2015 Clean Power Plan.
44% : In a victory for coal-producing states and fossil fuel companies, the Court ruled that Congress did not grant the EPA the authority to devise caps on GHG emissions based on a system-wide approach intended to shift power generation away from coal to cleaner gas and renewable energy sources.
43% : Specifically, coal has become uneconomic for much power generation in the face of sustained low natural gas prices from 2008 until last year.
40% : The decision in the American Lung Association case reaffirmed the EPA's 2015 finding that carbon emissions from power plants cause or contribute significantly to atmospheric greenhouse gas pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare.
37% : Although the EPA is not enforcing the Clean Power Plan and is in the process of new rulemaking, the West Virginia vs. EPA case was nonetheless justiciable, according to the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts.
30% : As noted by Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent in the West Virginia case, "Section 111 of the Clean Air Act directs EPA to regulate stationary sources of any substance that 'causes, or contributes significantly to, air pollution' and that 'may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.'

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.