Supreme Court to Consider EPA's Ability to Regulate Emissions Beyond Cars and Trucks

"The Supreme Court allowed the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as a pollutant to stand Tuesday, even as it agreed to examine how the agency could demand greater pollution controls through the permitting process," reports Juliet Eilperin.

Writing in The New York Times, Adam Liptak explains that, "[t]he Supreme Court accepted six petitions, but it limited the issue it would review to the question of whether the agency 'permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouses gases.'” 

"The question of how much the Supreme Court could scale back the federal government's ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions, now that it has taken up a narrow legal challenge, remains unclear," says Eilperin.