Surpreme Court freezes President Obama’s global warming plan

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a key part of President Barack Obama’s ambitious proposal to limit carbon emissions and reduce global warming while the plan is challenged.

The court granted a stay request from more than two dozen states, plus utilities and coal companies, that said the Environmental Protection Agency was overstepping its powers. The court’s decision does not address the merits of the challenge but indicates justices think the states have raised serious questions.

The administration’s initiative, which is still in the planning stages, required states to submit plans for shifting away from fossil-fuel power plants in favor of alternative forms of energy. It is aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions at existing plants by about a third by 2030.

The stay means that questions about the legality of the program will remain after Obama leaves office. An appeals court is not scheduled to hear the case until June, and the Supreme Court’s order said the stay would remain in effect while the losing side petitions the Supreme Court. If the court were to accept the case, that would mean an ultimate decision in 2017.

The timing imperils the Clean Power Plan, because a new president could make significant changes.

As is its custom in stay requests, the court did not give a reason for its action. The court’s four liberal justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — objected to the decision, but they did not give an explanation.

The Obama administration had told the court that the stay request was unprecedented and that it was routine for federal programs to proceed while courts considered challenges.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who spearheaded the states’ stay request, said the decision showed the court was leery of the plan.

“We are thrilled that the Supreme Court realized the rule’s immediate impact and froze its implementation, protecting workers and saving countless dollars as our fight against its legality continues,” Morrisey said.

Environmentalists said they hoped the setback was only temporary.

“Today’s court decision is unfortunate but does not reflect a decision on the merits,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. “The D.C. circuit court will carry out a careful and expeditious review of the merits over the next few months. The Clean Power Plan has a firm anchor in our nation’s clean air laws and a strong scientific record.”

The Clean Power Plan is an essential part of Obama’s pledge to reduce the country’s contribution to global warming, because the electric power sector of the economy emits 30 to 40 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gases.

Under the plan, states can draw up their own plans or choose the EPA’s plan. The EPA recently published its proposals and is finalizing that rule now. States were supposed to submit their plans by September but were allowed to ask for a two-year extension.

“It won’t prevent the EPA from doing the kind of planning they want to do, but most of the states are putting their pencils down,” said Jeffrey R. Holmstead, a senior EPA official under President George W. Bush and a critic of the Clean Power Plan.

“We’re obviously very disappointed,” said Bruce Nilles, a Sierra Club lawyer who has been campaigning to close down coal plants for years. “Almost every state has been in the process of planning for an orderly transition of cutting carbon and replacing coal plants with clean energy.”

Nilles, a former Justice Department lawyer, said “It is unprecedented for the Supreme Court to stay a rule at this point in litigation. They do this in death penalty cases.”

But the states had argued that the court needed to act now. Without a stay, they told the court, the plan would “force massive, irreversible changes in terms of state policies and resources, power plant shutdowns, and investments in wind and solar power” all in the name of a program that might ultimately be found unconstitutional.