A recent US Supreme Court decision upheld a key environmental protection rule limiting climate pollution from power plants, sending a message to utilities nationwide that they need to actively decarbonize their power generation plans.

The Supreme Court’s decision was to deny the response to a request from fossil fuel companies, electric utility companies, and their allies to stay or put a temporary stop on the power plant carbon limits finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year.

The Clean Power Plan, a power plant climate rule enacted by the Obama administration, was ultimately halted by a similar stay request granted by the Supreme Court in 2016. The new power plant carbon rules, which survived the recent stay request, may be more legally durable than their predecessors. 

Although the new carbon rules have been in effect since their proposal last year, utility companies all over the Southeast have flouted their existence, acting wishfully as if they simply don’t exist or will be struck down by the courts before compliance deadlines arrive. Duke, TVA, Santee Cooper, and Dominion Energy are all in the process of planning and/or building new large gas plants that will collectively cost billions of dollars to be compliant with the new EPA rules — billions of dollars that the utilities would ultimately stick on ratepayers.

The Court’s decision should send a clear signal to utilities that the new power plant carbon rules won’t necessarily go down the same path as the Clean Power Plan, and that utilities need to plan for decarbonizing, not recklessly committing billions of ratepayers’ dollars to large polluting gas projects that will violate the new standards. 

This ruling also highlights the significance of the current election for our ability to quickly decarbonize the electric sector. The EPA, which is in charge of creating and enforcing the power plant rules, will be run by the next president. Supreme Court justices are chosen by the President and confirmed by the Senate, which will revisit these rules to determine their legislative success.

The next stop for the power plant climate rules is further litigation in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and depending on the outcome, potentially back to the Supreme Court to decide the merits of the case.

Featured image credit Architect of the Capitol.