Antonin Scalia’s recent death will undoubtedly result in political turbulence. One important issue that will be especially affected is a subject very near and dear to many students here at the Big Green: green policy. Or, more specifically, the Clean Power Plan.
Last summer, the Obama administration introduced the completed Clean Power Plan, a piece of Environmental Protection Agency regulation that would require states to “develop plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions rates from existing fossil fuel powered electricity generating units.” Each state would have to submit these plans by 2016, though an extension to 2018 is available, and cut emissions starting in 2022 while reaching “significant reductions” by 2030. If states fail to submit their own plans, a federal plan will be enacted by the EPA.
I can’t help but imagine the federal government as a weary mother of 47 rambunctious teenagers. Vermont, the model child, doesn’t have a significant amount of CO2 emissions from power plants, and Alaska and Hawaii, the wacky cousins, are currently subject to individual deliberation by the EPA because of their unique situations. As for everyone else, I can clearly picture Obama scolding the states that will be bound by the CCP. “If you children do not tell me your EXACT plans for the weekend by tomorrow night, I swear, your father and I will NOT leave you all alone in the house. And you will have to go to Aunt Betty’s. We all know what happened to this place last time we went on vacation. The living room still smells like burned couch.”
The accidental burning of a couch by errant children is not so far from the the reality — the burning of fossil fuels by reckless states and, as a result, an increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. If all goes well, by 2030 plant emissions will be 32 percent lower than they were in 2005, but even so, this cut will not be enough to stop significant climate change.
Still, we would be on our way to the goals set in the Paris Climate Agreement. It is imperative that the United States be a leader in slowing CO2 emissions and protecting the integrity of our environment. This plan would position the U.S. at the forefront of this.
That is, if the plan goes through. Last Thursday, the Supreme Court voted to delay the plan’s enforcement. The vote was 5-4, with Scalia voting against the plan. As decisions had yet to be formally written, Scalia’s unfortunate passing made the vote 4-4. Now, the chances of the plan being struck down are now incredibly miniscule. This tie will probably lead to an affirmation of the lower court opinion, which was in favor of the CPP.
Scalia was a conservative justice and held traditionally conservative beliefs about environmental policy. An originalist who firmly believed in the importance of upholding the constitution in its entirety, and, as he put it in a discussion in 2006, “not a scientist,” Scalia consistently opposed more environmental regulations. In Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissent in Massachusetts v. EPA, signed on by Scalia, he argued that at both the federal and state level, policymakers are doing enough.
Scalia was truly a man of his word and refreshingly stuck to his guns, no pun intended, in a political realm in which you can’t help but to scrutinize everything that comes out of a politician’s mouth. Did they really mean what they just said? How fat was the stack of cash that pushed them to support that provision? Did they not take the complete opposite position just a few months ago?
His numerous merits unfortunately did not translate well into progressing environmental policy. Although I admire Scalia for being a man of his word, his strong opinions against environmental regulation held back U.S., and therefore global, progress on this important political issue.
Now, with Scalia’s unfortunate passing, the fate of the CPP looks bright for the immediate future but we should still be concerned about the viability of future U.S. environmental protection plans. Our 2016 presidential race will intensify as his passing creates an opening in the Supreme Court, not that this revved up reality television show of a race needs intensifying.
The appointment of the next Supreme Court justice should not be delayed. Senate Democrats, liberals and moderates who support green policies all need to fight to appoint a new and progressive justice to the court during Obama’s presidency, which will hopefully ensure environmnetal policy will progress in the future.
