What the Supreme Court’s blockbuster climate ruling means for North Carolina
The response to last week’s major Supreme Court ruling limiting the power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was swift and intense.
Environmentalists called it a devastating setback in the fight against climate change, while the Republican attorneys general who brought the suit cheered it as a landmark ruling for deregulation.
The decision in the case, West Virginia v. EPA, will make it harder for the federal government to combat global warming caused by humans. But experts in the energy, government, legal and nonprofit sectors told The Charlotte Observer that plans to cut emissions in North Carolina are unlikely to change.
State vs. federal regulations
The case focused solely on the federal government’s power, leaving state-level regulations intact.
Climate activists and legal experts say that makes it imperative for states to impose stringent environmental laws if the U.S. is to have any chance at meeting its climate goals.
“The EPA will have to choose between options that are either more expensive or less effective, or perhaps both,” said Jonas Monast, director of the Center on Climate, Energy, Environment & Economics at UNC Chapel Hill. “That makes state action all the more important.”
Last fall, North Carolina lawmakers passed a bill that requires utilities in the state to reduce carbon emissions by 70% of 2005 levels by 2030. It also requires them to become carbon neutral — meaning they do not emit more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they take out — by 2050.
“North Carolina is on a path to reduce carbon pollution from power plants in a way that is really meaningful,” said Gudrun Thompson, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t change that momentum.”
Under the state plan, Duke Energy, the state’s largest utility, was required to submit a proposal detailing how it would cut emissions. That plan won’t be affected by the Supreme Court ruling, Duke Energy spokesman Ben Goldey said in an emailed statement to The Charlotte Observer.
There will be “no immediate impact on the retirement dates for our coal plants,” Goldey said. The company is on track to generate just 5% of its energy from coal by 2030 and will retire its last coal plant by 2035, he said.
Sam Watson, chief legal counsel for the North Carolina Utilities Commission, agreed that the state’s environmental laws ensured plans to curb emissions would continue as expected. The commission is responsible for regulating public utilities, including Duke Energy.
North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser wrote on Twitter that her agency “will continue to reduce emissions and support North Carolina’s transition to clean energy.”
Multiple DEQ officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment by phone and email from The Charlotte Observer.
What the Supreme Court said
West Virginia v. EPA merged several lawsuits filed by coal companies and the attorneys general of North Dakota and West Virginia. They argued that the EPA lacked the authority to regulate power plant emissions under the Obama-era Clean Power Plan because Congress didn’t specifically authorize the agency to do so.
Power plants are the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., after transportation.
But the Clean Power Plan never went into effect — the Supreme Court halted it in 2016 while legal challenges played out, and the Trump administration repealed it in 2019.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority invoked a legal philosophy that says Congress must explicitly direct federal agencies to take action on issues of significant economic and social consequence, like climate change.
The justices agreed with West Virginia’s argument that no such direction had been given to the EPA.
Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissent signed by the court’s other two liberal members, wrote, “Whatever else this court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change.”
‘Not a bad ruling’
The court did not block the EPA from regulating power plant emissions entirely. While the ruling will make it harder for the U.S. to reduce pollution from power plants, it didn’t go as far in restricting the agency’s authority as some environmentalists had feared.
“It could have been a hell of a lot worse,” said Joel Porter, policy manager at CleanAIRE NC, an environmental nonprofit. “It actually gave the EPA, in my mind, a very narrow but well-defined path with which to deal with climate change.”
Porter also stressed the importance of state-level regulations. He urged the DEQ to commit North Carolina to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a coalition of East Coast states working to reduce emissions.
But state-level action, while important, can’t match the scope and impact of the federal government. And some experts worry the Supreme Court’s ruling will leave federal agencies poorly equipped to handle other major challenges.
“The more complex the issue, the more flexibility federal agencies need,” said Monast, the UNC climate center director. “And if the Supreme Court is going to force Congress to make very specific choices about how to address complex, rapidly changing issues, it’s going to limit our ability to effectively address those issues.”
This story was originally published July 7, 2022 at 5:55 AM with the headline "What the Supreme Court’s blockbuster climate ruling means for North Carolina."
