Global Project, Energy and Infrastructure Finance Partner Allan Marks today authored a Forbes article titled “Court Decision Lets Biden Set New Emissions Rules To Meet Paris Agreement Climate Goals.”
Today, shortly after his Inauguration, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. signed an Executive Order recommitting the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change. Yesterday, January 19, 2021, in the latest major judicial decision on regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in American Lung Association, et al. vs. EPA vacated the Affordable Clean Energy Rule that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump Administration adopted in June 2019. The 2019 Rule had replaced the earlier Clean Power Plan adopted by the EPA under President Barack Obama. Under President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., the EPA will now have the opportunity to create a more aggressive plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from thermal power plants (especially coal-fired power plants) without going through the cumbersome regulatory process of repealing the Trump-era rule.
President Biden, who during the campaign promised to sign an Executive Order for the United States to rejoin the Paris Agreement promptly upon taking office, may find both the timing and the substance of the court’s ruling fortuitous. Because the DC Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision yesterday both vacated the Trump Administration’s coal-friendly rules for power plant carbon emissions and found that the repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan was legally improper, the EPA now starts with a clean slate to adopt new greenhouse gas emissions limits, giving President Biden a clearer path to meet his Paris Agreement climate change goals as the United States formally rejoins the treaty.
Mr. Marks notes, “With the stroke of a pen on a new Executive Order, President Biden can cause the United States to rejoin the Paris Agreement without Congressional action. The United States will again have a seat at the table in future rounds of international discussions on how to mitigate and adapt to climate change and how to assist poorer countries in paying for the necessary investments while maintaining economic growth. Fundamentally, US influence in that global effort depends not just on foreign policy or global treaties but on aligning domestic energy policy with shared international goals to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The chance to overhaul the EPA’s emission rules for existing power plants will likely take on added urgency for the President’s team.”
