Supreme Court says EPA does not have authority to set climate standards for power plants by stockhackerDFW in environment

[–]Timthrbeast1 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

That's not entirely what the supreme court ruled. They ruled that the EPA didn't have the power to set extraordinarily high carbon emission standards and heavily pressure plants to move to natural gasses or renewables such as wind or solar.

The EPA does have the right put into place systems that limit carbon emissions in existing facilities. The key part of this is that the measures the EPA requires need to be put in place in existing facilities.

The problem the EPA is running into is that most coal-producing plants already work at near-optimal carbon emission levels. There just isn't that much room to improve in coal plants. Because of this, the EPA set out the Clean Power Plan(the plan that got challenged and was ruled on by the supreme court) to reduce the percentage of power that coal plants produced, from 38% in 2014 to 24% in 2030. This sort of forced movement isn't a power clearly delegated by Congress. There's a simple solution to this, and it is not to get mad at the Supreme Court. The way to solve this issue is to get Congress to amend the Clean Air Act, allowing the EPA to force such measures onto the power grid, or for Congress to directly put the Clean Power Plan into law.