1st nail..
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Supreme Disarray for the Global Climate Agenda
The high court's freeze of Obama's carbon plan casts doubt on the Paris accord.
Overshadowed by the presidential primary in New Hampshire, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a potentially devastating blow to President Barack Obama’s climate-rescue plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants.
Few observers expected the court to act so quickly, and aggressively, to block the new Environmental Protection Agency rules. The move may have the added effect of throwing a wrench into global climate change efforts that turn in large part on American leadership.
At issue is Obama's Clean Power Plan, which requires states and utilities to use less coal in favor of electricity derived from wind, solar, and natural gas. The plan, Obama’s signature climate initiative, aims to cut carbon output from power plants to less than 2005 levels. The goal of the plan, finalized last summer, is to be reached by 2030.
Coal producers, utilities, and a majority of states attacked the Clean Power Plan in court, alleging in a lawsuit that the EPA was exceeding its authority while unconstitutionally hindering that of the states. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has scheduled arguments in their case for June. On Jan. 21, however, the judges unanimously rejected their request to freeze Obama's plan in the interim. That rejection prompted them to turn to the Supreme Court.
Ordinarily, the justices wouldn’t intervene in a broad regulatory challenge at this early stage. While the high court’s intervention to block the Clean Power Plan isn’t the final word on the controversy—the whole case will eventually come back to the justices for a ruling on the merits—it's an ominous sign for the White House that a majority of the justices view the EPA climate initiative with skepticism......"
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