The next threat to Biden’s climate agenda

Jan 18, 2024

A worker in a jacket shovels snow on the steps in front of the Supreme Court.

A government employee shovels newly fallen snow from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

The stage is set for the Supreme Court to make it even harder for the Biden administration to defend its climate and energy policies in courts across the country.

A potentially blockbuster ruling expected to come this summer is likely to set limits to a legal theory known as the Chevron doctrine, which tells judges to favor federal agencies' readings of ambiguous laws, as long as those interpretations are reasonable.

The high court's rulings in Relentless v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo hold broad implications for just about any kind of agency action — and could make judges less likely to acknowledge federal agencies' authority to limit planet-warming pollution.

That would put a dent in President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, providing fuel for expected legal challenges on everything from EPA's efforts to limit power plant pollution to the Department of Energy's planned efficiency standards for a range of household appliances.

How far will the court go?

These cases are coming to a boil just two years after the justices made it more difficult for the administration to enact broad climate rules in West Virginia v. EPA. Their decision in that case prevented EPA from requiring power plants to switch to renewable energy.

The court could stop short of all-out erasure of the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine and instead opt to more clearly define how much courts are required to look into what Congress meant an agency to do.

During oral arguments Wednesday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has questioned how a Chevron repeal would affect the thousands of past rulings where courts had deferred to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous law.

"Isn't it inviting a flood of litigation, even if for the moment those holdings stay intact?" Barrett said during the Relentless hearing.

Gearing up for change

The challengers in both Relentless and Loper Bright oppose a federal regulation requiring owners or operators of fishing vessels to pay the salaries of monitors who are responsible for preventing overfishing.

The court agreed to hear both cases, rather than just one, so that the fate of Chevron could be determined by all nine justices. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has recused herself from the Loper Bright arguments because she was involved in the case as an appeals court judge.

If the court rules this summer to limit the doctrine, that could directly affect the Biden administration's approval of the Broadview Solar facility in Montana. The Edison Electric Institute argues that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wrongly approved the project under a law meant for small power production facilities. It has asked the Supreme Court to take up its petition after it rules on Relentless and Loper Bright.

On Wednesday, Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed skeptical of a ruling that keeps Chevron alive rather than scrapping it.

"Haven't we done that already?" he asked.

It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Niina H. Farah. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to nfarah@eenews.net.

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Power Centers

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.).

Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.) speaking with reporters at the Capitol last year. Carper will retire at the end of his current term. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Carper's green evolution
In his early days in Washington, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) voted to allow drilling in the Arctic. He has opposed raising miles-per-gallon standards. And nine years ago, he voted to approve the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Since taking over as the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Carper is singing a different tune. At the end of this Congress, Carper plans to retire. And he's hard at work cementing an environmental legacy, Kelsey Brugger reports.

Carper has distanced himself from the oil and chemical industry and hired sharp environmental policy experts as his top aides. He fought the Trump administration’s assault on public health and environmental regulations. And he's fought to keep Biden's 2022 climate law alive.

Emboldened youth
Young people turned out to vote in record numbers in the last two election cycles, helping deliver victories for Democrats. But there are already warning signs that 2024 could be different, Scott Waldman reports.

Climate change is among the top issues of people 29 and younger who expect to vote — along with the economy and gun control, according to a survey out of Tufts University. Of all young people polled, those who ranked climate policy as their top issue were the most motivated: 72 percent said they were likely to vote.

That group heavily leaned Democratic. But plenty of climate-minded voters still need convincing to vote for Biden, researchers say.

The Tufts survey found a significant number of young people are worried about climate change and believe political leaders have done nothing to address it, said Sara Suzuki, a senior researcher at Tufts.

High-wire act
Solar companies are coming off a banner year, with a record-breaking number of installations and a rising share of U.S. power generation.

2024 could be the year that decides whether solar clinches a more permanent position as the nation's dominant renewable power source. But times are still unstable. Regulatory and financial hurdles, not to mention political change, could shift the trajectory, Jason Plautz reports.

Preliminary numbers showed the U.S. added roughly 33,000 megawatts of solar production capacity in 2023, up more than 50 percent from 2022, according to a December report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie.

In Other News

Underdogs no more: Hyundai and Kia have become Tesla's biggest competitors in the U.S. electric vehicle market.

Electric converts: A small but growing group of commercial truck drivers are switching to electric trucks, praising the handling, acceleration and quiet operation.

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Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), chair and ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate and Grid Security, appearing before the Rules Committee last year. | Mariam Zuhaib/AP

Retirements and potential moves could create a leadership vacuum on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate and Grid Security.

Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore proposed $90 million to fund his climate plan, which needs $1 billion annually.

A think tank run by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is leading a $1 billion effort to spur U.S. hydrogen production.

That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.

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