August Editorial

North Dakota vs. EPA – Supreme Court Ruling

Marshal Albright, Cass County Electric Cooperative president & CEO

On June 30, the United States Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

The court’s decision acknowledged the EPA overstepped its authority in the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. The justices focused on whether Congress granted the EPA authority to set carbon dioxide emissions that would shift generation sources away from coal plants and toward renewable energy through Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act.

The following is a statement from the North Dakota Attorney General on June 30:
“Today, North Dakota secured a landmark U.S. Supreme Court victory in one of the most important environmental and energy law cases in decades, firmly establishing the state’s role as an equal partner with the federal government in regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants,” Attorney General Drew Wrigley said. “This is a tremendous victory for North Dakota and every state.”

By its action in North Dakota vs. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the 2020 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., that struck down U.S. EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which correctly recognized the allocation of state and federal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants under the Clean Air Act. The Affordable Clean Energy Rule had replaced the 2016 Clean Power Plan, which unwisely stripped states of their right and authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and imposed a draconian and centralized one-size-fits-all nationwide mandate that would have had devastating effects on North Dakota’s economy and citizens. Long before this decision, North Dakota played a leading role in persuading the Supreme Court to stop the Clean Power Plan. Wrigley said, “Our victory in the U.S. Supreme Court shows that the D.C. Circuit stepped way over the line when it allowed the EPA to ignore Congress and the states and transform EPA into a new national energy regulator.”

Wrigley observed that the Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for all states, noting that “North Dakota’s challenge focused on the fact that the D.C. Circuit’s Opinion failed to apply the Clean Air Act’s cooperative federalism approach establishing the partnership relationship between EPA and the states.” In other words – EPA could not make a policy decision to force states to shift away from coal generation without a technologically justified basis for doing so based on the Clean Air Act’s text. The Supreme Court adopted North Dakota’s position, stating that it found it “highly unlikely that Congress would leave agency discretion the decision of how much coal-based generation there should be over the coming decades” and that “it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme in Section 111(d)” of the Clean Air Act.

Supreme Court’s ruling today is a tremendously significant decision for state’s rights and consumers. This ruling puts a halt to federal overreach, including far-reaching EPA proposed rules that infringed not just on state’s but congressional authority,” Burgum said. “Leading with innovation, not regulation, and all-of-the-above energy strategies responsive to market trends, promoting new technologies to boost production and curb emissions is an environmentally sound and commonsense approach. As the first state to achieve primacy over Class VI Carbon Capture, North Dakotans are leading the way in decarbonizing our energy while continuing to boast some of the nation’s cleanest air and water. At this time of global uncertainty, North Dakota has the energy policies to bring down the price at the pump, improve U.S. security and global stability, and protect the environment.