Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan Stayed

By a vote of 5 to 4 late Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court issued a stay of implementation of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) until pending legal challenges to the CPP are resolved. The Court's order effectively puts on hold federal regulations designed to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by 2030 until all appeals presently before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit) as well as any subsequent appeals to the Supreme Court are decided.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito supported the stay. Dissenting from this decision were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.