The Supreme Court rolled back the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants Thursday, dealing a massive blow to the Biden administration’s plans to fight climate change.

The 6-3 decision overturned a lower court ruling that gave the federal agency virtually unlimited regulatory powers through the Clean Air Act. 

The case — West Virginia v. EPA — stems from the agency adopting the Affordable Clean Energy rule in 2019 to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was being repealed by the Trump administration after its implementation was blocked by a 2016 Supreme Court ruling.

A number of Democratic states, including New York, sued to stop the repeal. A federal appeals court in the District of Columbia sided with the states but struck down both the Clean Power Plan and the Affordable Clean Energy rule, leaving nothing in effect while the Biden administration drafted a new policy.

West Virginia and 18 other Republican-led states and coal companies appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, arguing that the lower court had given the EPA too much authority to regulate emissions, even going above what Congress intended.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the states that “it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme.”

“A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” he added.

Roberts also noted that the EPA claimed to have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions only after Congress declined to expand that authority through legislation.

“At bottom, the Clean Power Plan essentially adopted a cap-and-trade scheme, or set of state cap-and-trade schemes, for carbon,” the chief justice wrote. ” … Congress, however, has consistently rejected proposals to amend the Clean Air Act to create such a program. It has also declined to enact similar measures, such as a carbon tax … Given these circumstances, our precedent counsels skepticism toward EPA’s claim …”

Justice Elena Kagan, joined in her dissent by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said the decision disarms the EPA at a time when the country is facing “the most pressing environmental challenge of our time.”

“The Court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency — the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening,” Kagan wrote.

President Biden blasted the decision in a statement, saying it ” aims to take our country backwards.” 

” While this decision risks damaging our nation’s ability to keep our air clean and combat climate change, I will not relent in using my lawful authorities to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis,” the president said, accusing the court of siding with “special interests that have waged a long-term campaign to strip away our right to breathe clean air.”

“We cannot and will not ignore the danger to public health and existential threat the climate crisis poses,” the president added. “The science confirms what we all see with our own eyes – the wildfires, droughts, extreme heat, and intense storms are endangering our lives and livelihoods.”

“Together, we will tackle environmental injustice, create good-paying jobs, and lower costs for families building the clean energy economy,” Biden vowed. ‘Our fight against climate change must carry forward, and it will.”

Ironically, the emission reduction targets the Clean Power Plan set out to achieve by 2030 have already been met thanks to the market-driven closure of hundreds of coal plants across the US.

Patrick Morrisey, the attorney general of West Virginia, hailed the Supreme Court’s decision.

“Huge victory against federal overreach and the excesses of the administrative state. This is a HUGE win for West Virginia, our energy jobs and those who care about maintaining separation of powers in our nation,” Morrisey posted on his Twitter account.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra lamented the ruling as “a public health disaster that takes us backwards at a time when we badly need to be making progress. Power plant emissions make our climate less stable and our air less breathable and represent one of the defining quality-of-life risks of our generation.

“A failure to regulate power plant emissions will lead to increases in asthma, lung cancer and other diseases associated with poor air quality, and in many places, those impacts are likely to fall hardest in already heavily polluted neighborhoods that HHS is assisting through its Office of Environmental Justice,” Becerra added. ““The Biden-Harris administration will leave no stone unturned to protect public health and our climate, and I join my colleagues in calling on Congress to repair the damage done by the Court’s ruling.

“I continue to work with the President to identify and use existing lawful authorities to protect public health and accelerate our transition to a clean, healthy, and secure energy future for our country.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) predicted the decision’s effects “will ripple across the entire federal government, from the regulation of food and drugs to our nation’s health care system, all of which will put American lives at risk.”

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the UN special envoy for climate ambition and solutions, said the decision “turned back the clock to dark days that have dangerous implications for public health.”

“The decision to side with polluters over the public will cost American lives and cause an enormous amount of preventable suffering, with the biggest burden falling on low-income communities and communities of color,” he said in a statement.

With Post wires