Breaking: Supreme Court Blocks Obama’s Climate Plan

[Valin]

Power Line

Steven Hayward
February 9, 2016

This is huge. The Supreme Court, by a 5 – 4 vote, has just issued a stay of Obama’s so-called “Clean Power Plan,” pending a full review of the case by a lower appeals court. ABC News reports:

A divided Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to halt enforcement of President Barack Obama’s sweeping plan to address climate change until after legal challenges are resolved.

The surprising move is a blow to the administration and a victory for the coalition of 27 mostly Republican-led states and industry opponents that call the regulations “an unprecedented power grab.”

By temporarily freezing the rule the high court’s order signals that opponents have made a strong argument against the plan. A federal appeals court last month refused to put it on hold.

The court’s four liberal justices said they would have denied the request.

 

 

 

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Carbon pollution controls put on hold
Lyle Denniston
February 9th, 2016 6:45 pm

Dividing five-to-four, the Supreme Court on Tuesday evening ordered the Obama administration to take no steps to carry out its “Clean Power Plan,” a move that may stall the plan until after the President has left office next January. The order — issued in identical form in individual responses to five separate challenges — will spare the operators of coal-fired power plants from having to do anything to begin planning for a shift to energy sources that the government considers to be cleaner. (An example of the five orders is this one, issued in a case filed by twenty-nine states.)

 

(Snip)

 

The new orders will delay all parts of the plan, including all deadlines that would stretch on into 2030, until after the Circuit Court completed its review and the Supreme Court has finished, if the case does wind up there. There appears to be little chance for those two stages of review to be over when President Obama’s term ends next January 20.

 

(Snip)

 

While the five orders contained no explanation for the postponement, it seemed apparent that five Justices — the minimum number needed to take such action — found the challengers’ protests more convincing at this stage than the government’s attempt at giving assurances.

 

Only the votes of the four dissenting Justices were revealed in the orders — Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. That lineup meant, then, that the order had the approval of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. (They were not mentioned in the orders, but the orders had to have their support.)

 

(Snip)

[clearvision]

I assume this is a joke. Certainly can't be for real.

[Valin]

I assume this is a joke. Certainly can't be for real.

 

 

Apparently it is.

[Valin]

DU They are not happy campers.

[Valin]

More on the Supreme Court vs the EPA
Steven Hayward
February 10, 2016

The Supreme Court’s stay of Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” yesterday is fairly unusual. But it may have come about because the EPA essentially dared the judiciary to stop it. Jonathan Adler has some useful observations up on this point at The Volokh Conspiracy yesterday:

Looking back over the various stay applications, I suspect that the EPA’s arguments against the stay were undermined by the Agency’s own statements about the potentially revolutionary nature of the CPP. In promoting the plan, the EPA repeatedly emphasized that the CPP represented the most ambitious climate-related undertaking in the agency’s history and crowed that the plan would lead to the complete restructuring of the energy sector. Making these claims may have undermined the EPA’s position, because it made it easier for the stay applicants to argue that a stay was justified. Put another way, an unprecedented assertion of regulatory authority may itself have justified an unprecedented exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction to stay the agency’s action.

(Snip)

It’s like the EPA said to the Supreme Court, “Nyah, nyah, you can’t stop us!” Even for Chief Justice John (I See Nothing Wrong with the Statute) Roberts, this is too much.

 

Incidentally—or is it a bonus!—this ruling may nuke the Paris climate accord. Now if we could just bring back nukes (power that is).

[Draggingtree]

SCOTUS Smackdown of EPA: Top Takeaways

 

Jim Lakely / February 11, 2016/ 15 COMMENTS

 

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) did something remarkable on Tuesday: It momentarily respected the separation of powers and finally shouted “Enough!” to the lawless rule of the Environmental Protection Agency. SCOTUS issued a stay on Obama’s “Clean Power Plan,” which is a radical, law-by-decree scheme to do nothing less than put this nation’s enormously complex energy-delivery system into the hands of central planners on the Potomac.

 

It was Clinton advisor Paul Begala who once said: “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.” Not any more … at least for now in this case.

https://ricochet.com/scotus-smackdown-epa-top-takeaways/

[Draggingtree]

The Court Blocks Efforts to Slow Climate Change

 

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDFEB. 11, 2016The Supreme Court’s extraordinary decision on Tuesday to temporarily block the Obama administration’s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from power plants was deeply disturbing on two fronts.

 

It raised serious questions about America’s ability to deliver on Mr. Obama’s pledge in Paris in December to sharply reduce carbon emissions, and, inevitably, about its willingness to take a leadership role on the issue.

 

And with all the Republican-appointed justices lining up in a 5-to-4 vote to halt the regulation before a federal appeals court could rule on it, the court also reinforced the belief among many Americans that the court is knee-deep in the partisan politics it claims to stand above. While the court’s action was not a ruling on the merits of the case, it will delay efforts to comply with

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/opinion/the-court-blocks-efforts-to-slow-climate-change.html?ref=opinion

[Valin]

The Court Blocks Efforts to Slow Climate Change

 

The Clean Power Plan, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency last August, requires states to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from their electricity producers, which chiefly use older coal-fired power plants, over the next few years. These plants produce more carbon emissions than any other source, and cutting them is the backbone of Mr. Obama’s larger goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions over all by at least 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.