SCOTUS Decisions on EPA Rules Coming Soon

Any day now, the U.S. Supreme Court may decide on requests to its "shadow docket" from industry groups and their allies in some states against three recent standards issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

• Carbon rules for power plants in West Virginia v. EPA(24A95)

• Methane curbs on oil and gas operations in Oklahoma v. EPA(24A213)

• Mercury and air toxic rules for coal power plants in NACCO v. EPA(24A178)

NRDC, in partnership with other health and environmental groups, has intervened in each case to back the EPA standards. Before the Court decides on whether it will grant emergency stays to these rules, we wanted to be sure you had some important context about these cases as well as the legal background:

1. Halting a rule at this early stage would be-almost -unprecedented. Prior to 2016, the Supreme Court had never stayed an EPA air pollution rule before a lower court had considered the full merits of the case. It has now done so twice, for the Clean Power Plan in 2016 and Good Neighbor rule in June 2024.

1. A stay is an "emergency" action that is meant to be granted only in extraordinary cases. As Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote, "To obtain emergency relief, applicants must, at a minimum, show that they are likely to succeed on the merits, that they will be irreparably injured absent a stay, and that the balance of the equities favors them."

1. The D.C. Circuit unanimously rejected all of these stay requests-with even the Trump-appointed judges on those cases voting against the stays. In the power plant carbon case, the court explained that there is no urgent deadline and that "petitioners have not shown they are likely to succeed on (their) claims given the record in this case." So that request failed twice over.

1. In fact, there is no emergency: States and companies have plenty of time to make plans to comply with each of these rules. As our responsein the mercury and air toxics case says, that rule will only require one plant (Colstrip in Montana) to install new equipment to control hazardous air pollution. Some other plants will need to tune up their existing equipment; most will have no additional control requirements.

1. There is no emergency for the power plant carbon rules, either. The power plant standards for existing coal plants will start to take effect in eight years. States have two years to come up with their plans on how to comply, which should not be a heavy lift given coal's continued decline. And if states don't want to come up with a plan, they can default to a federal plan. For new gas plants, the rules don't require significant reductions until 2032.  

1. These cases are primarily factual and technical, and so pose no significant question of law that should warrant a SCOTUS intervention. As our filingsays in the power plant carbon case, "There is no need for this Court to preliminarily resolve the merits of the parties' technical, record-based disagreements on an emergency basis." The D.C. Circuit is moving quickly to hear and decide these various factual and technical disputes; there is no reason for the high court to jump into the fray now.

1. Even conservatives on the Supreme Court are saying use of the "shadow docket" is going too far. In a dissent in the shadow docket case over the EPA's Good Neighbor rule earlier this year, Justice Barrett wrote, "The Court grants emergency relief in a fact intensive and highly technical case without fully engaging with both the relevant law and the voluminous record." This would be exactly what is at issue in these new EPA cases as well.

1. Regardless of how SCOTUS rules on these stay requests, the legal process will continue. Whatever the Supreme Court decides on the stays, the D.C. Circuit will have to decide whether the EPA followed the law and made reasonable technical judgments. In setting these rules, the EPA considered the prior rulings from SCOTUS and set straightforward standards that sit well withinthe agency's legal authority and technical expertise. The Supreme Court may choose to review the D.C. Circuit's eventual opinions, but then at least SCOTUS would have the benefit of that court's analysis as well as its deep dive into the factual record.  

In sum: A stay in any of these cases would be a dismaying sign from the Supreme Court. It would be a further indication that a majority on the Court has a deep hostility to the traditional and well-established authorities to use the Clean Air Act to protect the health and welfare of the American people, as well as hostility to the precedent of rare emergency stays.