Thread by @FreedomWorks

🧵Today, SCOTUS issued its decision in WV v. EPA, a major admin law case that considered EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act.

In a 6-3 vote, the Court held that under the Major Questions Doctrine, the Obama Admin’s Clean Power Plan was illegal. #ampFW ampfw.org/3ytcyHJ

#ampFW: In 2015, the Obama Admin EPA issued the Clean Power Plan.

Under it, the EPA determined the best system to reduce carbon emissions was generation shifting-effectively replacing coal-fired power plants with plants fueled by natural gas & replacing all fossil fuel-based..

electricity with electricity generated from zero-emitting renewable-energy sources.

The plan would have increased electricity costs by $214B and cost $64B to replace shuttered capacity. The EPA predicted that its rule would cost billions and eliminate thousands of jobs. #ampFW

#ampFW: In 16', SCOTUS stayed the CPP, preventing its enforcement.

Pres Trump's EPA repealed the CPP and instituted its own, the Affordable Clean Energy Rule. It determined the Clean Air Act limits the best system of emission reduction to only those measures that can be put..

into operation at an existing power plant. The rule also only addressed coal-fired generating plants.

EPA read the CAA to limit best systems analysis to physical improvements at a plant, which precludes off-site measures like generation shifting, which the CPP instituted. #ampFW

Trump’s EPA disagreed w/ the CPP because it believed it violated the Major Questions Doctrine.

An admin law doctrine that says regulations of vast political and economic significance must be clearly authorized by the statute to take effect. #ampFW

#ampFW: SCOTUS used the Major Questions Doctrine in holding the CDC eviction moratorium and OSHA vaccine mandate illegal and unenforceable.

Both regulations were not clearly authorized by the statute & were of vast political and economic significance costing billions of 💰.

Trump’s EPA was sued over its rule. The DC Circuit held it unlawful b/c the Clean Air Act specifically authorized the EPA to consider and impose generation shifting as a tool of emissions reduction. The act imposed no limits on the types of measures the EPA may consider beyond...

3 additional criteria: cost, any nonair quality health & environmental impacts, and energy requirements.

The court added that in enacting the Clean Air Act, Congress delegated to EPA the decision of whether and how to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from powerplants. #ampFW

#ampFW: Based on the above, after President Trump left office, several conservative states led by West Virginia sued arguing the DC Circuit ruling was wrong, the EPA’s power is much more circumscribed, & SCOTUS should limit the Clean Air Act under the Major Questions Doctrine.

#ampFW: Today, the Court used the Major Questions Doctrine to invalidate the Obama Admin and the DC Circuit’s broad reading of the Clean Air Act.

Under this doctrine, when a federal agency claims unheralded and boundless power that it has never used, courts are VERY skeptical.

In those unprecedented cases, like the EPA’s Clean Air Act arguments, the CDC’s eviction moratorium, or OSHA’s vaccine mandate, the agency “must point to clear congressional authorization for the power it claims.”

If it can’t, the agency’s action is illegal and unenforceable.

The Court explained the Major Questions Doctrine developed b/c of a recurring problem: “agencies asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted.”

Here, EPA found unprecedented power under the CAA in rarely used provision

Not only was the provision rarely used, the language is vague, & Congress had DENIED acting on reforms like the Clean Power Plan b/c the votes weren’t there.

Therefore, the Court took a CLOSE look to see if the CAA actually gave power the Obama Admin claimed that it did. #ampFW

Unsurprisingly, the CAA does NOT confer the power the Obama Admin claimed.

Longstanding EPA views on the CAA held “its role was limited to ensuring the efficient pollution performance of each individual regulated source. Under that paradigm, if a source was already operating...

..at that level, there was nothing more for EPA to do.”

But, under the NEW authority, EPA demanded much greater reductions in emissions based on a very DIFFERENT kind of policy judgment– it would be GREAT if coal was a SMALLER share of national electricity generation. #ampFW

The Court also found it “highly unlikely that Congress would leave to agency discretion the decision of how much coal-based generation there should be over the coming decades…[t]he basic and consequential tradeoffs involved…are one that Congress would... have [kept] for itself”

Finally, even if the CAA did grant such power, no one would have looked in Section 111(d).

The Court was also not pleased that the EPA tried to implement a program that Congress debarted & rejected several times. The CPP really was the cap & trade scheme that Congress REJECTED.

#ampFW: In sum, the EPA does not have vast, unprecedented power in Section 111(d) of the CAA.

There is no history of it using the statute this way, Congress has rejected what the EPA tried to implement, & if enacted, the regulation could have ended all coal plants as we know it.

#ampFW: Justice Gorsuch wrote a concurrence joined by Justice Alito stressing that the Major Questions Doctrine is really about the need for Congress to address consequential subjects, NOT federal agencies. If agencies could address every question, there is NO NEED for Congress.

#ampFW: Gorsuch further explained the Major Question Doctrines applies in 3 cases when an agency:

(1) Seeks to resolve a matter of great political significance

(2) Seeks to regulate a significant portion of the American economy, and

(3) Intrudes into a typical state law.

The opinion is a win AGAINST far reaching and unprecedented powers from federal agencies, but it does NOT SAY: The EPA is unconstitutional, it cannot regulate carbon emissions, or the CAA is unconstitutional.

Rather, the Court told the EPA to stay within the text of the CAA.