Heather Cox Richardson @HC_Richardson has just tweeted "The Supreme Court has gone rogue. We are in a full-blown Constitutional crisis. Congress must act. And we must pressure Congress to act, while it still can."
Today June 30, 2022 the Supreme Court of the U.S. voted to restrict the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to mandate heat-trapping gas emissions reductions, specifically those related to the power sector. The High Court ruled in West Virginia v. EPA (20-1530) " Congress did not grant the Environmental Protection Agency in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan."
Electricity is currently responsible for a quarter of U.S. emissions and the Biden administration has set a goal to eliminate these emissions entirely by 2035. Today’s ruling doesn’t stop climate action in the U.S.; but it does make it a lot harder to address the climate crisis at a time when we need to be doing all we can.
Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe articulates the stakes during this segment with MSNBC's José Díaz-Balart. "If we don't fix climate change, it will fix us."
Bill McKibben @billmckibben tweeted: "Understand that today's EPA ruling is the culmination of decades of careful and patient work by big business using dark money... The Supreme Court to Physics: Drop Dead."
Contact your Congressman today.
Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss
Read Climate Brief: Can Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss Be Tackled Together?
What is Your Carbon Footprint?
Does your congregation, small business, or nonprofit want to step on the carbon scale, measure your carbon footprint, and see what you can do together to reduce it? Climate Stewards USA has developed a new, free carbon footprint calculator called 360carbon that lets organizations measure their carbon footprints and figure out how to start cutting them.. More than two dozen churches across America are already using this tool. Talk to your organizations about using 360carbon today!