The Supreme Court has threatened environmental protections with rulings that limit the power of agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to combat climate change and pollution.
Two of the Supreme Court’s most recent decisions, both decided 6-3 along ideological lines, could have far-reaching effects on government agencies’ ability to make and defend rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and air and water pollution.
Stan Meiberg, the EPA’s No. 2 acting chief under the Obama administration, said people should be “very concerned” about what the decision means and how it will affect the government’s ability “to respond to the real environmental crises that we face today.”
Last week, the Supreme Court overturned a precedent known as “Chevron deference,” which instructs judges to defer to federal agencies when the law is unclear.
The repeal of this principle would mean that in sensitive cases, judges would be more likely to adopt their own interpretation of the law rather than that of a federal agency, making agency actions more likely to be overturned.
On Monday, a federal court gave opponents of the federal rules more time to challenge the rules in court and extended the period in which opponents can sue. In practice, this is expected to allow new companies to challenge rules that were previously thought to be long-established.
Friday’s ruling overturning the Chevron ruling caused great alarm among environmental activists.
While the ruling technically applies equally to administrations of both parties, Sam Sanker, Earthjustice’s senior vice president of programs, said the ruling is a “significant deregulation,” especially given the judiciary’s conservative makeup.
“This court is saying we should read the statute first, not the authorities. We should resolve ambiguities. We don’t listen to authorities except as a third party to the litigation. And this is a very conservative court that interprets statutes as narrowly as possible,” Sankar told reporters.
“The federal government and environmental groups will be on a litigation rampage just to maintain the status quo, and industry and its right-wing allies will be doing everything in their power to use this tool to their advantage,” he said.
Sanjay Narayan, managing attorney for the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program, said the Chevron decision also upends historic respect for technical and logistical expertise within the agency.
“I think what this decision means is that even small, everyday things can undermine the effectiveness of a range of policies,” he said in a conference call with reporters.
Meiburg, the former EPA official, believes Monday’s ruling allowing a later legal challenge could have even more significant implications.
“It seems like regulations are creating endless opportunities that are never resolved,” he said.
“They basically said, ‘Well, there’s no statute of limitations. [It] “It says, ‘The statute of limitations doesn’t start running until an injury actually occurs,’ so if you set up a new company and say, ‘We suffered an injury,’ you can reopen pretty much all of the rules,” he added.
Meiburg said particularly weak regulations include long-standing limits on the amount of air and water pollution that industries can emit, such as hazardous air pollutant regulations.
Meanwhile, Nina Mendelson, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said she doesn’t believe that certain types of environmental regulations are more vulnerable than others in light of recent rulings, saying “they’re all vulnerable.”
“The message here is that government agencies may be sued even decades later and must be prepared for legal mayhem, both in terms of detailed analysis of highly technical issues and in their best efforts to offer a reasoned interpretation that is faithful to the intent of Congress in enacting the law,” Mendelson said.
This is especially true in light of last week’s third ruling halting the Biden administration’s interstate air pollution regulations, she said.
“One of the reasons the rule was suspended is because the court felt that EPA did not adequately address specific concerns raised by the challengers, even though EPA had gone to great lengths to address many of the concerns surrounding the rule and even though those specific issues were not presented to EPA directly,” Mendelson said.
“This is telling government agencies, ‘Be prepared to have to fight litigation over trivial issues you’ve never heard of before,'” she added.
