Gavel To Gavel: Case Could Affect Agency Jurisdiction

Pending before the U.S. Supreme Court is a case with broad implications for the Environmental Protection Agency's power and agency power more broadly. The case, West Virginia v. EPA, focuses on the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan (CPP), which sparked controversy when promulgated in 2015 for using generation shifting measures. These measures encourage shifting electricity generation from higher-emitting sources to lower-emitting sources including forcing higher-emitting sources to subsidize operations of lower-emitting sources.

While the CPP was never fully implemented, its repeal and replacement by the Trump administration's Affordable Clean Energy rule (ACE) was brought before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which held that EPA's reasoning for abandoning CPP was erroneous. Thus, the centerpiece of the pending claim – does the Clean Air Act grant EPA the power to govern CO2 emissions from existing power plants by