#Supreme court latest decisions how to

Court rulings can involve the methods of execution used, the competency of defense counsel, the selection of juries, the behavior of the prosecution, and many other matters protected by the right to due process. In particular, the Supreme Court is responsible for ensuring that state use of the death penalty adheres to our fundamental rights. States may be more protective of individual rights than required under the federal constitution, but they cannot be less protective. She was joined by the court's other two liberals.The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of whether the constitution is being followed. I cannot think of many things more frightening.'

#Supreme court latest decisions how to

The Court majority, she says, 'does not have a clue about how to address climate change.yet it appoints itself, instead of congress or the expert agency.the decision-maker on climate policy. The text of the Clean Air Act, she said, clearly anticipates that the EPA will have to deal with new problems and uses broad language to allow that. Justice Elena Kagan, in a furious dissent, said essentially that the Court is making up new rules that contradict nearly a century of regulatory law. The agency instead must point to 'clear congressional authorization' for the power it claims.' 'To convince us otherwise, something more than a merely plausible textual basis for the agency action is necessary. In 'certain extraordinary cases, both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent make us 'reluctant to read into ambiguous statutory text' the delegation claimed to be lurking there,' Roberts writes. Even though the program was blocked by the courts, it met its targets 11 years ahead of schedule for the simple reason that it turned out coal was too expensive compared to other power generating sources. The Obama administration set state-by-state carbon limits and encouraged states to rely less on coal and more on alternative energy sources.

The issue before the court was how the EPA can regulate coal-fired power plants, which in this country are the single largest source of carbon emissions that cause climate challenge. Well, that whole government approach may now find itself under a cloud of this court's opinion.' 'Remember when Joe Biden was elected he said we're going to use a whole big government approach to climate change, not just EPA regulation. In terms of climate change, Lazarus believes it will have an immediate effect. In other words, an agency 'can't simply retrofit an old statute to create new tools or new mechanisms' to address a problem that is generally within the agency's jurisdiction. 'This could not have come at a worse time' because 'the consequences of climate change are increasingly dire and we're running out of time to address it.'Īs Case Western Reserve professor Jonathan Adler put it, 'The Court is definitely sending a signal to regulatory agencies more broadly that they only have the power that Congress delegated to them, and that agencies need to think twice before they try to pour new wine out of old bottles.' 'That's a very big deal because they're not going to get it from Congress because Congress is essentially dysfunctional,' said Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus, an expert on environmental law. The decision by the conservative court majority sets the stage for further limitations on the regulatory power of other agencies as well.īy a vote of 6 to 3, the court said that any time an agency does something big and new – in this case addressing climate change – the regulation is presumptively invalid, unless Congress has specifically authorized regulating in this sphere. Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a major blow to the Environmental Protection Agency's power to regulate carbon emissions that cause climate change. Supreme Court curbed the EPA's ability to fight climate change.