Dems’ Climate Bill Overrides Supreme Court and Expands EPA’s Control Over Energy Industry

• The Inflation Reduction Act defines “air pollutants” including carbon dioxide as “greenhouse gases.”
• Some experts argue this legally authorizes the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases and encourage adopting renewable energy, while others were not so sure.
• “There’s no definition there, it’s just sort of in a list, and it’s casually mentioned,” former Trump EPA transition team member Steve Milloy told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “There’s no section that says carbon dioxide is an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act.”

The Democrat-led climate bill signed into law Aug. 16 grew the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority over energy after the Supreme Court limited it in June.

The court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA limited the EPA’s regulatory power and found that Congress had not authorized the agency under the Clean Air Act (CAA) to impose greenhouse gas emissions caps under the now-replaced Clean Power Plan to force a national transition away from coal power. Several of the Inflation Reduction Act‘s sections define the term “greenhouse gas” as “the air pollutants carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.”

Democrats who contributed to the climate bill and legal experts said it clearly authorizes the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases and push for renewable energy adoption by defining fossil fuel-generated carbon dioxide as an “air pollutant” in an amended Clean Air Act, according to The New York Times.

The language was rejected by Senate Republicans, but it survived their efforts to remove it. “The EPA will try to use it as authorization that they may regulate carbon dioxide from coking plants because there is this casual mentions of air pollution in the same sentence,” JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy, a member of the Trump EPA Transition Team told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Although I don’t believe that this will work, there are still a lot of problems that can be caused. It’s obvious that the definition is not there. The list contains it, but it’s only casually mentioned. There’s no section that says carbon dioxide is an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act.”

Milloy called the EPA’s rule for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) to tighten air quality standards “a backdoor way of regulating climate.”

“They’ll probably do the same thing with ozone, and then they’ll use this authority somehow,” he said of the climate bill’s language on carbon dioxide. The EPA will use any and all means necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Because the Supreme Court stated that congressional authorization is required, they do not have it. Although they don’t have any, the section does not give them it

Milloy stated that the “leftist D.C.” Circuit Court of Appeals may accept the Democrats’ argument. (RELATED: Dems’ Climate Bill Includes Massive Tax Break For Mining Industry)

American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Benjamin Zycher told the DCNF said it was unclear if language in the climate bill directing funds to dealing with carbon dioxide as a “pollutant” “satisfies the explicit delegation requirement for major questions as decided by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA.

He said that the argument that CO2 constitutes an air pollutant according to the CAA’s traditional definition is absurd. The CAA requires EPA to establish an ambient air quality standard (AAQS), that ‘protects public health’ and provides an adequate margin for safety’ to any ‘air pollution’ that EPA deems dangerous to public safety or health. EPA made that determination for CO2 in 2009; but that was and remains preposterous, as there is no evidence that increasing CO2 (or CO2-equivalent GHG) concentrations are ‘endangering’ anyone, or creating a ‘crisis. ‘”

Brookings Institution Energy Security and Climate Initiative Director Samantha Gross tweeted, “I’m frustrated by voices on the right saying that Congress defining CO2 as a pollutant is an ‘end run’ around the recent WV v EPA Supreme Court decision. Congress makes laws; the courts make them. This is exactly what Congress is supposed to do!”

I’m frustrated by voices on the right saying that Congress defining CO2 as a pollutant is an “end run” around the recent WV v EPA Supreme Court decision. The courts make the laws. Congress makes them. That is precisely what Congress should do. https://t.co/cYPr4TPLV4

— Samantha Gross (@samanthaenergy) August 23, 2022

President Joe Biden signed the bill as natural gas prices reached their highest point in 14 years.

The DCNF did not receive a response to their request for comment.

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