Corporate Climate Change, Expose Series-Intro: Leaked memos show Supreme Court ignored climate dangers in Obama regs fight P3
- Shidonna Raven
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
By Alex Guillén
04/20/2026 06:48 AM EDT
Source: E & E News by Politico
Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,
“They should have been asking, ‘What are the public benefits from the rule, the costs of blocking the rule?’” said David Doniger, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “And they didn’t even ask.”
A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not respond to requests for comment.
The February 2016 stay of the Clean Power Plan, which came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to block it, sent shock waves across Washington. It was the first time the high court had stepped in to block a rule before a lower court had been able to rule on whether it was legal.
But some of the court’s conservative justices made the case that this was an unprecedented regulation.
The case would inevitably end up before the Supreme Court eventually, and there is “a fair prospect for reversal,” Roberts wrote in his initial memo.
In addition to casting a skeptical eye on EPA’s authority, Roberts also highlighted the “irreparable harm” the rule’s opponents would face if it wasn’t stayed immediately. Irreparable harm is one of the criteria to staying a regulation under Supreme Court precedent.
Roberts pointed to EPA’s modeling, which indicated the rule would cause a 2 percent decrease in coal production for the power sector in 2016 and 2017 and a 4.3 percent decrease in 2018.
“That harm, once incurred, is irreversible,” Roberts wrote. “Given the long lead times and high capital expenditures required for the construction of new plants, once a utility takes steps to comply with the rule its actions are not likely to be undone.” (In reality, coal production dropped 43 percent between 2015 and 2024 in the absence of any regulation, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.)
Roberts cited one analysis of EPA’s proposed rule that found it could increase energy system costs by almost $480 billion through 2031, although he acknowledged in a footnote that “their figures are likely at the high end of a possible cost range.”
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