- Bayern hit nine, Real Madrid and Liverpool win as new Champions League kicks off
- Author John Grisham joins bid to save Texas death row inmate
- Venezuela arrests fourth American over alleged 'plot' against Maduro
- 'Happy' Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- Man Utd hit Barnsley for seven in League Cup rout
- Dolphins quarterback Tagovailoa facing concussion layoff
- Stylish Liverpool strut past Milan in confident Champions league opener
- Kane scores four as Bayern put nine past Zagreb in the Champions League
- Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- More than 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Harris calls Trump as assassination scare sparks tensions
- Dow edges down from record as some eye a smaller Fed rate cut
- Sommer vows Inter will 'defend with all we have' to stop Haaland
- Report links meatpacking companies to 'war on nature' in Brazil
- Bolivian ex-leader Morales, backers set out on weeklong protest march
- Smith grateful to McCullum for launching his England career
- Arizona to ask court to rule on voting rights
- Villa make perfect start on Champions League return after 41-year absence
- Israeli supply chain infiltration likely behind Hezbollah pager blasts: analysts
- Rodgers backs Celtic to be 'really competitive' in Champions League
- Spacewalk an 'emotional experience' for private astronauts
- Storm Boris toll rises to 22 in central Europe
- Nine dead, 2,800 wounded as Lebanon's Hezbollah hit by pager blasts
- Boeing, union resume talks as strike empties Seattle plants
- Over 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Australia's Zampa accepts Ashes chances remote as 100th ODI looms
- UN General Assembly debates call for end to Israeli occupation
- Marseille complete signing of French international Rabiot
- Easterby to fill in as Ireland coach while Farrell is with the Lions
- Hezbollah in Lebanon hit by wave of deadly pager blasts
- Postecoglou taken aback by criticism of his second season success claim
- US, European stocks rise on retail sales, rate cut expectations
- Fendi sees Roaring 20s at Milan Fashion Week in challenging times
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr part ways with coach Castro
- Scottish government backs Glasgow to stage troubled 2026 Commonwealth Games
- Storm Boris toll rises to 21 in central Europe
- Instagram, under pressure, tightens protection for teens
- Inflation slows again in Canada to 2%
- US, European stocks rise on eve of Fed rate decision
- EU bans Algerian spread toasted on social media
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs charged with racketeering, sex trafficking
- Trump returns to campaign trail after assassination scare
- Activist urges repatriation of Native Americans dead in Paris 'human zoo'
- US retail sales see slight rise, beating expectations
- US Fed begins two-day meeting set to end with rate cut
- Exploding Hezbollah pagers wound hundreds across Lebanon
- Runners-up Yokohama thrashed 7-3 in AFC Champions League goal fest
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs to plead not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking
- Jihadist group claims rare attack on Mali capital
- 'I am a rapist,' Frenchman tells trial over mass rape of wife
US Supreme Court hears climate case as UN issues stark warning
A divided US Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in an environmental regulation case with potentially far-reaching implications for the Biden administration's fight against climate change.
The case concerns the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, which produce nearly 20 percent of the electricity in the United States.
As the Supreme Court was hearing arguments, the United Nations issued a landmark report containing dire warnings over climate change.
While the three liberal justices on the nine-member Supreme Court appeared largely to support arguments that the EPA was operating within its brief, several of the conservative justices appeared skeptical.
"This agency is doing greenhouse gas regulation," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the liberal members of the court. "This is in, you know, exactly in its wheelhouse."
Jacob Roth, arguing for The North America Coal Corp., said the EPA is going beyond its remit.
"The agency is asking questions like: Should we phase out the coal industry? Should we build more solar farms in this country? Should we restrict how consumers use electricity in order to bring down emissions?
"Those are not the types of questions we expect the agency to be answering," Roth said.
In 2007, the Supreme Court, by a narrow majority, ruled that the EPA has the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act of 1970.
In 2015, Democratic president Barack Obama unveiled his Clean Power Plan, which was intended to combat global warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal- and gas-burning plants and shifting energy production to clean sources such as solar and wind power.
The Clean Power Plan was blocked in the Supreme Court in 2016 and repealed by former Republican president Donald Trump, who replaced it with his own industry-friendly Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule.
Trump, a climate change skeptic hostile to government regulation of industry, also nominated three justices to the Supreme Court, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority.
- 'Constrain EPA authority' -
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out Trump's ACE rule on the last day of his presidency, setting the stage for the case currently before the Supreme Court: West Virginia vs EPA.
West Virginia and several other coal-producing states asked the Supreme Court to intervene and define the powers of the EPA. The case has also been embraced by opponents of strong government regulatory authority.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing before the court for the Biden administration, said the justices should just wait until the EPA publishes its new rules.
"The DC Circuit's judgment leaves no EPA rule in effect," Prelogar said. "No federal regulation will occur until EPA completes its upcoming rulemaking.
"Petitioners aren't harmed by the status quo," she said. "Instead, what they seek from this court is a decision to constrain EPA authority in the upcoming rulemaking."
In its brief to the court, West Virginia accused the EPA of acting like "the country's central energy planning authority."
Justice Samuel Alito, one of the more conservative members of the court, questioned how far the EPA could go in regulating emissions.
"Is there any reason EPA couldn't force the adoption of a system for single family homes that is similar to what it has done, what it is claiming it can do, with respect to existing power plants?" Alito asked.
Prelogar, the solicitor general, replied that the EPA "has never listed homes as a source category and couldn't do so because they are far too diverse and differentiated."
UN experts, in the report issued Monday on the global impacts of climate change, said humanity is perilously close to missing its chance to secure a "liveable" future.
"The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and planetary health," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.
Any further delay in global action to cut carbon pollution and prepare for impacts already in the pipeline "will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," the 195-nation IPCC warned.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision in West Virginia vs EPA before June.
L.Davis--AMWN