West Virginia v. EPA

On July 27, 2018, public health and environmental organizations who intervened to defend the Clean Power Plan submitted a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts “to notify the Court of developments in the underlying litigation” challenging the Clean Power Plan. The organizations indicated that D.C. Circuit judges had suggested that litigants had a continuing duty to keep the Supreme Court—which stayed the Clean Power Plan in February 2016—informed of “any development which may conceivably affect the outcome.” The organizations informed the Court that the litigation had been held in abeyance since the D.C. Circuit granted EPA’s March 2017 abeyance request. They asserted that “contrary to the premise” of the Court’s stay orders, “the litigation has come to a protracted standstill with the support of the parties that sought a stay in this Court.” The organizations indicated that “the Court may wish to require the parties to explain why the stay should continue in effect.”

In five identical half-page orders, the United States Supreme Court granted five applications requesting that it stay implementation of the Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon emissions from existing power plants. The orders indicated that Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan voted to deny the applications. A blog post by Sabin Center Director Michael Gerrard about the stay is available <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2016/02/10/the-supreme-court-stay-of-the-clean-power-plan-and-the-paris-pledges/">here</a>.