Within days, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision that could severely limit the federal government’s authority to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants — pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders, several with ties to the oil and coal industries, to use the judicial system to weaken the executive branch’s ability to tackle global warming. Coming up through the federal courts are more climate cases, each carefully selected for its potential to block the government’s ability to regulate industries and businesses that produce greenhouse gases.
By Coral Davenport. New York Times. June 19, 2022.
