Shadow Docket

Clean Air and the Turbocharged Shadow Docket

Guest Contributors Sean Donahue & Megan Herzog write that coal advocates offer troubling new grounds for the Supreme Court to stay EPA’s carbon pollution standards.

The Supreme Court is currently considering eight emergency (or “shadow docket”) requests from coal advocates (coal-mining companies, coal-burning electricity generators, and allied State attorneys general led by West Virginia) to bar implementation of new EPA rules limiting carbon pollution from coal- and gas-burning power plants while legal challenges to the rules proceed—what is known as …

CONTINUE READING

The D.C. Circuit and the Biden Power Plant Rule

Regulating inside the fenceline

The court’s denial of a stay is very good news for EPA

The D.C. Circuit frequently denies stays, but this ruling was notable for three reasons: It allows an important climate change regulation to go into effect; it clarified an important legal doctrine; and it has a good chance of being upheld on appeal.

CONTINUE READING

The Supreme Court & Interstate Pollution

It was puzzling that the Court agreed to hear the case. How has it ruled? And why?

Months ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an “emergency” request to stay EPA’s new rule regulating interstate air pollution.  Like most observers, I was puzzled that the Court was bothering with the case before the D.C. Circuit even had a chance to consider the merits of the challenges. Months later, the Court has finally …

CONTINUE READING

The Mystery of the Missing Stay Order

Why is the Supreme Court waiting for weeks to dispose of a demand for extraordinary intervention in a routine situation?

The steel industry applied for Supreme Court intervention on what they claimed was an urgent issue of vast national importance. Chief Justice Roberts requested an immediate government response. That was six weeks ago.  Since then . . . crickets. No doubt you’re on the edge of your seat, wondering about the impending crisis facing the …

CONTINUE READING

Taking the Court’s Temperature on Global Warming

A case on the shadow docket may shed light on the Court’s direction.

Court watchers and environmentalists are waiting with bated breath for the Supreme Court to rule on West Virginia v. EPA, the Court’s most important climate change case in a generation. The issue in that case is what, if anything, EPA can do to regulate carbon emissions from power plants and factories. Yesterday, conservative states asked …

CONTINUE READING

Join Our Mailing List

Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.

TRENDING