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Democrats and environmental groups are fuming over the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which has severe consequences for the administration’s climate ambitions.
A sampling:
Decisions like WV vs. EPA make it clear just how much the system is rigged against us.
A Supreme Court that sides with the fossil fuel industry over the health and safety of its people is anti-life and illegitimate.
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) June 30, 2022
Our planet is on fire, and this extremist Supreme Court has destroyed the federal government’s ability to fight back.
This radical Supreme Court is increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis, and we can’t let them have the last word.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 30, 2022
From the liberal justices’ dissent:
Justice Kagan: “The Court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decision- maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening. Respectfully, I dissent.” https://t.co/L3sGnqB8Zg
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 30, 2022
The session may have ended, but that’s not all from the Supreme Court today. Our Sam Levine notes that the Supreme Court has announced that it will take up a “hugely consequential” case related to redistricting and other election law disputes next term.
Breaking news: The supreme court agreed to hear a hugely consequential case challenging the right of state courts to weigh in on redistricting and other election law disputes
— Sam Levine (@srl) June 30, 2022
JUST IN: Supreme Court to take up a North Carolina case on whether state courts or legislatures have the final word on elections. Will be a testing of the “independent state legislature” theory that underpinned much of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election
— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) June 30, 2022
The Supreme Court decided 5-4 that Biden had the authority to terminate the controversial “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced asylum seekers mostly from Central America arriving at the US southern border to await approval in Mexico.
The decision was written by chief justice John Roberts and joined by justice Brett Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberals. The program, known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols, was established by the Trump administration as a means to stem immigration at the southwestern border. Under the policy, tens of thousands of migrants have been returned to Mexico, where they await consideration of their cases in squalid and dangerous encampments along the border.
Here’s more from yours truly on what the decision means.
Biden can end Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, supreme court rules
In its second and final decision of the day, the Supreme Court on Thursday said Biden can terminate a controversial Trump-era immigration policy, known as Remain in Mexico. The ruling affirms a president’s broad power to set the nation’s immigration policy.
The ruling concludes the most consequential supreme court term in recent memory.
“I am authorized to announce that the Court has acted upon all cases submitted to the Court for decision this term,” Roberts writes in his end of term statement. The court will now recess from “today until the first Monday in October 2022.”
Supreme Court limits federal power to regulate carbon emissions
The Supreme Court on Thursday sharply curbed the federal government’s authority to limit carbon emissions from existing power plants, dealing a major blow to the administration’s climate goals.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative supermajority sided with conservative states and fossil fuel companies in a move that will hobble efforts to move the US away from coal-burning power plants and toward sources of renewable energy.
The decision will have “profound implications for the government’s overall regulatory power” and will “seriously hinder America’s ability to stave off disastrous global heating,” writes Oliver Milman, the Guardian’s environment reporter.
Here’s more from Oliver:
The case, which was backed by a host of other Republican-led states including Texas and Kentucky, was highly unusual in that it was based upon the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era strategy to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants that never came into effect. The Biden administration sought to have the case dismissed as baseless given the plan was dropped and has not been resurrected.
Not only was this case about a regulation that does not exist, that never took effect, and which would have imposed obligations on the energy sector that it would have met regardless. It also involves two legal doctrines that are not mentioned in the constitution, and that most scholars agree have no basis in any federal statute.
However, the supreme court has sided with West Virginia, a major coal mining state, which argued that “unelected bureaucrats” at the EPA should not be allowed to reshape its economy by limiting pollution – even though emissions from coal are helping cause worsening flooding, heatwaves and droughts around the world, as well as killing millions of people through toxic air.
It is the most important climate change case to come before the supreme court in more than a decade.
Liz Cheney, the Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, said her party had a choice to make: it could be loyal to Donald Trump or the Constitution, but not both.
In scathing speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, she assailed Republicans who have ignored or downplayed revelations about Trump’s attempts to overturning the 2020 election, accusing them of being “willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.”
“We have to choose, because Republicans cannot be loyal to Donald Trump and to the Constitution,” she said, according to the LA Times.
The daughter of Republican vice president Dick Cheney, her name was once synonymous with the small-government conservatism that defined the party. But now she finds herself ostracized, a lonely Trump critic determined to break his grip on her party, even if it costs her her political career.
Biden supports changing filibuster rules to codify Roe
Biden said he would support changing the Senate filibuster rules to codify abortion rights nationally.
“We have to codify Roe v Wade in the law and the wya to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights, … we should require an exception to the filibuster for this action,” he said.
The filibuster requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the evenly-divided Senate. All 50 Democrats and two Republicans say they would support, in theory, legislation codifying abortion, which leaves them 8 votes short of the 60-vote threshold. However, Democrats lack the necessary 50 votes to eliminate or change the filibuster rules.
Under pressure from pro-choice advocates for not doing enough, Biden said he would meet with a group of governors on Friday to discuss abortion rights. He told reporters he would announce long-promised actions by the federal government to protect abortion access at the event.
Given his evolution on abortion, Biden is asked if he is the party’s best messenger on the issue.
He let out a chuckle: “Yeah, I am.”
“I’m the president of the United States of America. That makes me the best messenger,” he said. “I’m the only president they got. And I feel extremely strongly that I’m going to everything in my power which I legally can do in terms of executive orders as well as push the Congress and the public.
The bottom line here is, if you care, if the polling data is correct, and you think this decision by the court was an outrage or a significant mistake: VOTE. Show up and vote. Vote in the off-year and vote vote vote. That’s how we’ll change it.”
Biden insisted that not one single world leader believes the US is going “backward” amid decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion, expanding weapons, soaring inflation and near-daily revelations about the shocking efforts by his predecessor to cling to power.
In Madrid, he said he’s only heard world leaders thank him for the US leadership on Ukraine.
“The one thing that has been destabilizing is the outrageous behavior of the Supreme Court of the United in overruling not only Roe v Wade but essentially challenging the right to privacy,” he said.
Of its decision on Roe, Biden said: “It is a mistake in my view for the Supreme Court to do what it did.”
Asked whether there will come a day when the US will no longer be able to support Ukraine, he said no. He said he doesn’t know how or when the war will end but vowed that it would “not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine.”
“The reason why gas prices are up is because of Russia,” Biden says. “Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Russian leader Vladimir Putin, he said, “is getting exactly what he did not want. He wanted the Finlandization of NATO. He got the NATO-ization of Finland”
Biden is holding a press conference in Madrid.
“This summit was about strengthening our alliance, meeting the challenges of our world as it is today, and the threats we’re going to face in the future,” Biden said. He noted that the world has changed since Nato last drafted its mission statement, which considered Russia an ally and made no mention of China.
He also applauded the decision to welcome Finland and Sweden joining the Nato alliance.
He accidentally said “Switzerland” instead of Sweden and, catching himself, joked: “Switzerland. My goodness.I’m getting really anxious here about expanding Nato. Sweden!”
He again declared that the US was prepared to defend “every inch” of Nato territory. “The United States is rallying the world to stand with Ukraine.”
Supreme court to issue final decisions of blockbuster term
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the day in politics.
Today Americans are bracing for two major decisions that will conclude what has been among the most consequential supreme court terms in recent decades. From abortion to guns, the rulings by the 6-3 conservative supermajority have dramatically reshaped American life. Now we await for their opinion on two cases that could have significant consequences for the executive branch’s ability to make policy.
- Following the end of this blockbuster session, Justice Stephen Breyer will officially retire at noon and Ketanji Brown Jackson will be sworn in as the newest associate justice in a small ceremony. Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the constitutional oath and Breyer will administer the judicial oath.
- Meanwhile, Joe Biden is concluding his trip to Europe, where he met with European and Nato allies. He will deliver remarks and take questions from reporters at a press conference in Madrid at some point this morning.
- Last night, the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has issued a subpoena for former White House counsel Pat Cipollone. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, testified Tuesday that Cipollone insisted Trump not go to the Capitol with his supporters as Congress certified Biden’s electoral victory on January 6. He also sought to have Trump urge his supporters to leave the Capitol after the riot began, according to Hutchinson.
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