PHOENIX – Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich praised the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) today after it ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) unconstitutional overreach in the nation’s utility power sector in West Virginia v. EPA.
“Today’s decision is a victory for the separation of powers and the ability of the free market to bring prices down,” said General Brnovich. “The federal bureaucrats at the EPA do not get to pick and choose how America produces its energy.”
Under President Obama, the EPA promulgated a rule claiming to have the authority to reshape the nation’s utility power sector by mandating standards nearly impossible for coal and natural gas power plants to meet without limiting operations or shutting down. Now five years later, SCOTUS determined that Congress alone has the power to either make climate-change policy or delegate it to the EPA, which it has not done.
SCOTUS recognized that Congress—rather than the EPA—can legislate issues relating to climate change and the power sector. It’s a key constitutional principle, as Congress is able to consider the many mitigating factors relating to climate change as well as the interests of the states through the state representatives.
Read a copy of the opinion here.