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“While this is a setback for addressing the climate crisis, EPA still retains the authority, and an obligation, to limit greenhouse gas emissions, including from the power sector,” Adler said in an email. Besides increasing the efficiency of power plants through heat rate improvements, the EPA can look to other ways to lower carbon emissions such as co-firing with low-carbon fuels and carbon capture and sequestration, according to Adler.

 Adler warned that the case could be the “canary in the regulatory coal mine” because the court relied on the little-used “major questions doctrine” to reach its conclusion that EPA had veered beyond its congressionally approved instructions. Adler warned that applying the major questions legal theory more broadly — as conservative judges on the court have increasingly done to block regulatory initiatives — “will create more uncertainty for agencies and the entities that they regulate.”

Speaking of the West Virginia v. EPA ruling, Richard Revesz said, "It's basically turning on its head decades of accepted law involving the relationship between congress and administrative agencies."

Yesterday's West Virginia v EPA ruling marked a shift in the way the Supreme Court reviews an agency's authority by focusing more attention on the major questions doctrine, said Max Sarinsky, a professor at the New York University School of Law. "It's inviting courts to apply particular scrutiny and skepticism" when reviewing regulations, Sarinsky said.

While the Supreme Court's recent ruling hinders the Biden administration's ability to battle climate change, the ruling could also affect other agencies, according to Jack Lienke, the Regulatory Policy Director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law. (Segment begins at 3:55).

The Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA may not be the worst outcome environmental advocates feared, but it is a major blow to the Biden administration's efforts to reduce the severity of human-caused global warming. "While environmental advocates have much to criticize in the outcome of this case, it is noteworthy that the majority opinion did not challenge the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases in the first place", Richard Revesz, a professor at NYU Law School, said in a statement.

Dueling sentiments defined the day for climate activists, investors and lawyers as they reacted to the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA. “EPA still has tools to work with. EPA is still going to do the work of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants,” said Jack Lienke. “It’s frustrating ... but the game isn’t over.” 

"The EPA still has a number of pathways to do its job to protect public health and the environment," said Dena Adler, a research scholar at New York University School of Law, noting that "Congress wrote the Clean Air Act to broadly protect public health."

On 30 June, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that could set back efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate other environmental issues. It could be a “canary in the coal mine” for how this court will interpret agencies’ authority to use their expertise, says Dena Adler at New York University School of Law.

"The one thing EPA won't be able to do [to limit greenhouse gases] is what the Clean Power Plan did," Richard Revesz, an environmental law expert at NYU School of Law told CNN. Revesz said the EPA will now have to consider what action it can take within the confines of the ruling, and noted that this case does not limit EPA's authority to regulate other sectors of the economy like transportation or industrial emissions.