President Biden’s climate agenda is now lost in a fog of war

The High Court may gut the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the emissions of greenhouse gases, writes David Callaway

Should the Supreme Court decide to remove the EPA authority, Biden’s climate agenda will be dead ahead of the important November midterm elections (AP)

Lost in the urgency of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and turbulent financial markets, President Joe Biden’s climate agenda faces a death blow next week from the US Supreme Court.

Already rocked by the collapse of the President’s “Build Back Better” legislation, climate advocates now face the potential that the High Court may gut the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate the emissions of greenhouse gases.

The court is scheduled to hear a case on 28 February, titled West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency, which challenges a case from 2007 that wraps greenhouse gases with “air pollutants” in the laws that allow the EPA to regulate pollution as part of the Clean Air Act. At stake is not only the EPA’s authority, but potentially every government regulatory agency, as the case involves Congress’s right to delegate authority to other regulatory bodies.