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At the heart of the decision in West Virginia v. EPA lies the “major questions” doctrine: the legal argument that federal agencies may not rule on matters of “great economic and political significance” without direct approval from Congress. Dena Adler, research scholar at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, called the standard for the major questions doctrine “mushy.” “Opponents of regulation will continue to attempt to argue that other regulatory policies now qualify as major questions, and push for that exception to swallow the rule,” Adler said.

Late last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, a 2015 regulation limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, exceeded the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act. Where does this decision leave climate policy at EPA? Down but not out. The agency still has meaningful options for decarbonizing the power sector, but it won’t be able to implement them quickly — or without a fight.

A Yale Journal of Regulation article by Justin Gundlach and Michael Livermore on the complementary uses of the social cost of greenhouse gases and marginal abatement costs metrics was featured in the editors' selection, along with an op-ed by Peter Howard and Max Sarinsky explaining why limiting domestic fossil fuel extraction reduces global climate pollution despite substitution effects.

The Supreme Court’s enshrinement in West Virginia v. EPA of the major questions doctrine as a key technique of statutory interpretation is a threat to regulation in general, contends Richard Revesz.

Most Clean Air Act experts say that even if ACE had taken effect, the Biden EPA would have little difficulty in rolling it back and replacing it with a new rule. “The explanation might have looked a little different if the Trump administration had justified the ACE rule in a different way,” said Richard Revesz. “But I don’t think it would have taken any extra time to do it.”

Greenhouse gas emissions are financially relevant to investors because they affect the company's ability to transition to a new economy, and could add compliance costs, Lienke said. “If we know that an increasing number of states and countries are making legally binding requirements," he said, "that is going to have a financial impact on those companies in those jurisdictions that emit a lot."

Federal agencies often fail to justify the analytical time frames they use in their cost-benefit analyses, even when their chosen time frame clearly truncates a policy’s costs and benefits. Lance Bowman summarizes his recent report's recommendations for how the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can address this problem through standardized guidance to agencies.

Richard Revesz, professor and director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, said the Supreme Court’s decision would limit but not remove the EPA’s power to regulate power plant emissions. “The administration still has a lot of tools in its toolbox," he said.

The real wrecking ball in West Virginia v. EPA is how the court unnecessarily tied our societal hands from most effectively tackling a major problem. This case could be a canary in the coal mine for a wider attack on regulatory safeguards.

Observers had mixed views on how the ruling would affect proposed changes to company disclosure statements about climate-related risks at the SEC, or FERC's proposal for how to assess the emissions of individual interstate natural gas projects before they are approved for construction. The disclosure rule is designed to be a proxy for the financial risk facing companies, including from potential environmental regulation, and does not force companies to reduce their emissions, according to recent public comments filed by the Institute for Policy Integrity.