White House Blasts Supreme Court’s Opinion Limiting EPA’s Authority: ‘Devastating Decision’

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The White House blasted the Supreme Court on Thursday for limiting the EPA’s authority when it comes to power plants.

In a statement, the White House said:

This is another devastating decision from the Court that aims to take our country backwards. While the Court’s decision risks damaging our ability to keep our air clean and combat climate change, President [Joe] Biden will not relent in using the authorities that he has under law to protect public health and tackle the climate change crisis. Our lawyers will study the ruling carefully and we will find ways to move forward under federal law. At the same time, Congress must also act to accelerate America’s path to a clean, healthy, secure energy future.

In a statement Thursday afternoon, Biden slammed the decision.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA is another devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards. While this decision risks damaging our nation’s ability to keep our air clean and combat climate change, I will not relent in using my lawful authorities to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis.

I have directed my legal team to work with the Department of Justice and affected agencies to review this decision carefully and find ways that we can, under federal law, continue protecting Americans from harmful pollution, including pollution that causes climate change.

Since the Clean Air Act was passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress in 1970, the landmark law has enabled both Democratic and Republican administrations to protect and improve the air we breathe, cutting air pollution by 78 percent even as our economy quadrupled in size. Yet today’s decision sides with special interests that have waged a long-term campaign to strip away our right to breathe clean air.

We cannot and will not ignore the danger to public health and existential threat the climate crisis poses. The science confirms what we all see with our own eyes – the wildfires, droughts, extreme heat, and intense storms are endangering our lives and livelihoods.

I will take action. My Administration will continue using lawful executive authority, including the EPA’s legally-upheld authorities, to keep our air clean, protect public health, and tackle the climate crisis. We will work with states and cities to pass and uphold laws that protect their citizens. And we will keep pushing for additional Congressional action, so that Americans can fully seize the economic opportunities, cost-saving benefits, and security of a clean energy future. Together, we will tackle environmental injustice, create good-paying jobs, and lower costs for families building the clean energy economy.

Our fight against climate change must carry forward, and it will.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took a harsher tone, saying people will die as a result of the 6-3 ruling.

“First on gun safety, then on abortion, and now on the environment – this MAGA, repressive, extremist Supreme Court is intent on setting America back decades, if not centuries,” he said in a statement. “The Republican-appointed majority of the MAGA Court is pushing back the country back to a time when robber barons and corporate elites have complete power and average citizens have no say.”

Schumer went on to state that the decision in West Virginia v. EPA “will cause more needless deaths – in this instance because of more pollution that will exacerbate the climate crisis and make our air and water less clean and safe.”

“But make no mistake – the consequences of this decision will ripple across the entire federal government, from the regulation of food and drugs to our nation’s health care system, all of which will put American lives at risk, making it all the more imperative that Democrats soon to pass meaningful legislation to address the climate crisis.”