Kelsey Reichmann

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court refused Wednesday to pause the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions regulation rule for power plants.

Over two dozen Republican-led states led by West Virginia filed an emergency appeal in July to block regulations to adopt climate-friendly energy alternatives for fossil fuel power plants. Dozens of fossil fuel industry groups also joined the chorus, pushing the justices to prevent the Biden administration from enforcing its new rule while it is challenged in court.

Despite the monthslong delay, the court did not explain why it denied the applications. Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, said he would have granted the application.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump appointee, said he thought the states and industry groups offered strong arguments against the rule that could succeed on appeal but noted that a stay wasn’t necessary since power plants wouldn’t begin compliance work until June 2025.

“This court understandably denies the stay applications for now,” Kavanaugh wrote in a statement joined by his fellow Trump appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Kavanaugh urged the D.C. Circuit to resolve the case quickly and suggested the justices would be more amenable to relief after the appeals court weighed in.

“After the D.C. Circuit decides the case, the nonprevailing parties could, if circumstances warrant, seek appropriate relief in this court pending this court’s disposition of any petition for certiorari, and if certiorari is granted, the ultimate disposition of the case,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Under the rule, coal-fired plants must control 90% of their carbon pollution, further limit emissions of toxic metals, reduce wastewater pollutants and safely manage coal ash.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the regulations aimed at forcing investment in reliable electricity, but coal and mining groups say the administration overestimated current technological capabilities. NACCO Natural Resources Corporation told the court that commercial plants had yet to consistently capture high percentages of carbon emissions. Even if plants could do so, the group said companies lacked sequestration sites to store any captured carbon.

The National Mining Association — a coal advocacy group — added that implementing the rule would come at the cost of thousands of jobs, and The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association said plants would be forced to shut down without more time to meet compliance standards.

"Forced shutdowns will slash electric reliability across the country and impose other enormous, 'nonrecoverable' compliance costs," the electric group wrote in their brief. "Multiple NRECA members face costs of $10 billion or more each."

After the rule was announced in April, West Virginia and the industry groups filed multiple lawsuits claiming the EPA exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act. They asked for a repeat of the court’s 2022 case under the same name, West Virginia v. EPA, finding that “major questions” require explicit congressional authorization.

A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit rejected that argument last month, finding that the states lacked evidence that the EPA’s rule came without consideration of current technological capacities.

The Biden administration said the states and industry groups did not meaningfully dispute the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act, and instead, objected to the agency’s technical and scientific judgments on carbon capture.

“This case, in short, does not involve the type of fundamental statutory-interpretation issue that might warrant this court’s intervention, whether on the merits docket or the emergency docket,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the federal government’s brief. “The case instead primarily involves routine, record-intensive arbitrary-and-capricious claims — and meritless ones at that.”

Prelogar argued that carbon capture clearly fell under a “system of emission reduction” within the act because it allows power plants to reduce their emissions.

Some of the nation’s largest electric utilities and owners of electricity generating units including Pacific Gas and Electric Company and Consolidated Edison, backed up the EPA’s argument. The utilities said the dispute centered on whether the EPA acted reasonably when reviewing the thousands of comments and technical documents submitted in the rulemaking processes. They said that fact-intensive review does not concern the agency exceeding its delegated authority.

The D.C. Circuit already agreed to an expedited hearing timeline to review the case, scheduling briefing to end in November. The utilities also noted that the rule’s compliance deadlines do not kick in until 2030 or 2032.

“Especially in the absence of imminent compliance deadlines, the court should decline to grant the extraordinary relief of a stay pursuant to its emergency docket,” the utilities wrote in their brief before the court.

Almost two dozen states added that the public interest weighed against a stay on the rule. Led by New York, the states argued that fossil fuel companies wanted a stay to evade any EPA regulations limiting emissions from existing plants.

“More than a decade after this court told the states in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut to look to EPA and its authority under Section 111 to stave off the grave harms caused by carbon pollution emitted by power plants nationwide — and after decades of devastating storms, wildfires, and heat waves supercharged by climate change — the sector has still evaded any EPA regulations limiting CO2 from existing plants,” the states wrote.

Without explanation, Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, recused from the applications and did not participate in the ruling.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rejected a similar appeal challenging mercury and methane reductions.