Supreme Court unanimously rejects climate lawsuit against power companies

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected a lawsuit yesterday that targeted a handful of big power companies over their global warming pollution, ruling that authority to curb emissions rests not with the courts but with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The core issue in the lawsuit, American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, was whether federal law allows states and private parties to file nuisance suits against utilities over greenhouse gas pollution. But the high court ruled that the EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act trumps any federal common-law right to curb power plant emissions.

"The critical point is that Congress delegated to EPA the decision whether and how to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants; this delegation displaces federal common law," the court said in the 8-0 ruling [pdf] penned by Justice Ginsburg.

The decision marks the second time in four years that the high court has ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.

The lawsuit was originally brought in 2004 by eight states -- Connecticut, New York, California, Iowa, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin -- along with New York City; three environmental nonprofits joined the action later. The suit targeted the five largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the United States, all of them either headquartered or doing business in the South:

* American Electric Power, an Ohio-based company with customers in seven Southern states;
* Cinergy, an Ohio company acquired by North Carolina's Duke Energy in 2005;
* the Southern Company of Atlanta, the parent company of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power and Mississippi Power;
* the federal Tennessee Valley Authority headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn.; and
* Xcel Energy, which is based in Minneapolis but serves customers in other states including Texas.

Those utilities released about 650 million tons of carbon dioxide each year -- about 10 percent of the U.S. total, Politico reports.

The plaintiffs argued that the greenhouse gas pollution from the companies' plants was a public nuisance and causing irreparable harm to property. In 2005, a U.S. District Court judge in New York ruled that greenhouse gas emissions were a matter for Congress or the President, not the courts. However, a federal appeals court disagreed, ruling in 2009 that the lower court had erred. (A former member of that appellate panel, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor recused herself from yesterday's decision.)

Peter Keisler, the attorney who argued the case on behalf of the utilities, said in a statement that the ruling means power companies "can continue to operate -- in accordance with governing statutes and regulations -- without the threat of federal 'climate change tort litigation,' and the substantial costs and risks to productivity these claims present."

The Edison Electric Institute, a trade group representing shareholder-owned utilities, praised the ruling, with President Tom Kuhn telling Bloomberg that it confirms the industry's view that greenhouse gas regulation is not a matter for the courts.

The decision was also cheered by the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, which along with the American Petroleum Institute had filed an amicus brief in support of the utilities.

"The court's ruling is a logical and just decision and should send a signal to those attempting to use arcane legal rules to advance their political agendas," said NPRA President Charles T. Drevna.

But environmental advocates also saw a victory in the high court's confirmation that federal regulators have a key role to play in regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The ruling "reaffirms the Environmental Protection Agency's duty under the nation's 40-year-old Clean Air Act to safeguard public health and welfare from dangerous carbon pollution," said David Doniger, a Natural Resources Defense Council climate policy specialist who helped represent the environmental groups involved in the suit. "Now the EPA must act without delay."

The Obama administration -- which represented TVA in opposing the nuisance suit -- has committed to issuing a proposed greenhouse gas rule for existing power plants and refineries by July, with a final rule to be in place by May 2012.

But some in Congress are trying to strip EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Earlier this year, the GOP-controlled House passed a bill to strike down the EPA's greenhouse gas regulations, but the move was blocked by the Democrat-controlled Senate.