On October 29, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court granted four petitions for writs of certiorari seeking review of the D.C. Circuit’s January 2021 decision vacating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) repeal and replacement of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan regulations for controlling carbon emissions from existing power plants. One petition was filed by West Virginia and 18 other states. Two coal companies each filed a petition, and North Dakota filed a separate petition. The questions presented in the four petitions and accepted for review by the Supreme Court are as follows:

•	In 42 U.S.C. § 7411(d), an ancillary provision of the Clean Air Act, did Congress constitutionally authorize the Environmental Protection Agency to issue significant rules—including those capable of reshaping the nation's electricity grids and unilaterally decarbonizing virtually any sector of the economy—without any limits on what the agency can require so long as it considers cost, nonair impacts, and energy requirements? West Virginia v. EPA, No. 20-1530 (U.S.)
•	Whether 42 U.S.C. § 7411(d), which authorizes the EPA to impose standards "for any existing source" based on limits "achievable through the application of the best system of emission reduction" that has been "adequately demonstrated," grants the EPA authority not only to impose standards based on technology and methods that can be applied at and achieved by that existing source, but also allows the agency to develop industry-wide systems like cap-and-trade regimes. North American Coal Corporation v. EPA, No. 20-1531 (U.S.)
•	Whether 42 U.S.C. § 7411(d) clearly authorizes EPA to decide such matters of vast economic and political significance as whether and how to restructure the nation's energy system. (The Court did not grant certiorari on a second question presented in this petition.) Westmoreland Mining Holdings LLC v. EPA, No. 20-1778  (U.S.)
•	Can EPA promulgate regulations for existing stationary sources that require States to apply binding nationwide "performance standards" at a generation-sector-wide level, instead of at the individual source level, and can those regulations deprive States of all implementation and decision making power in creating their Section 111(d) plans? North Dakota v. EPA, No. 20-1780 (U.S.)

Challenge to final rule repealing the Clean Power Plan and replacing it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule.

West Virginia v. EPA

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Supreme Court Agreed to Hear Case Concerning EPA Authority to Regulate Carbon Emissions at Existing Power Plants

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United States of America

District of Columbia

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Supreme Court Agreed to Hear Case Concerning EPA Authority to Regulate Carbon Emissions at Existing Power Plants

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