January is Hot, And the Supreme Court Just Got Interesting

January 2016 set the record for being the hottest January recorded. It follows on the heals of the hottest year ever recorded (2015), which itself blew away the previous record holder set just one year before in 2014. See a trend, anyone? With the climate clearly heating up, so too is the Supreme Court battle over President Obama's attempt to deal with climate change heating up.

The January heat wasn't just hot, it was a bigger hot than any previous hot. At 1.13 degrees C above the norm it exceeds the previous record increase set a month before. This sets the stage for 2016 to possibly set yet another record, the third year in a row to break the previous record. Worse yet, the biggest increase in heat is in the Arctic, where it's so hot that the annual maximum sea ice extent is trending the lowest it has ever been. Bottom line = the rate of warming is higher than it has been in a decade, which will speed up the impacts we are already noticing and move closer impacts we hoped wouldn't be seen until the end of the century.

Which makes the sudden passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia so important. Last week I reported on what the February 9th stay on implementation of the President's Clean Power Plan meant for climate. In the blink of an eye the entire calculus changes. The Constitution requires President Obama to nominate a successor to fill Justice Scalia's now vacant position on the bench. That same Constitution requires the Senate to review and vote on the nominee. Despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's bloviating about not even considering a nominee, the Constitution requires them to act. With nearly a year left in President Obama's term, there is plenty of time for all to conform to their Constitutional responsibilities.

Given the far right "conservative" leanings of Justice Scalia, it's likely that any Obama nominee will be more judicially, well, judicial rather than overtly political. That obviously puts the Republican majority Senate in a position they would prefer not to be in - hence the bloviating - but they have an obligation to move forward. Assuming some Obama-appointed justice is confirmed, that justice is likely to have a different view on the Clean Power Plan than did Scalia. The same is true for several other pending and possible future issues before the Court.

So what happens next? As Obama decides who he will nominate, the Court is essentially (or at least presumably) deadlocked on key cases; those cases are remanded to the appeal court decisions, which in general favors Obama's positions. For the Clean Power Plan it likely means it will be allowed to move forward. That isn't a given, but the probabilities increase for it to happen.

As a reminder, the Clean Power Plan is simply a set of EPA rules that would help reduce carbon emissions from power plants. It is by no means the "answer" to climate change, merely the first small step within the limitations of Executive Branch authority while we all wait for Congress to take more substantive action. Given the Republican-led Congress's denial of the science, it seems likely that Congress won't take any action until Democrats can retake the majority. That's possible in the Senate this year (though by no means a given), but won't happen in the House until gerrymandering reform makes House seats honestly competitive (something that won't happen at least until after the 2020 elections).

Which is why the Clean Power Plan is so important. It's a small step, but it's a step in the right direction.

Supreme Court Temporarily Stays Clean Power Plan - What it Means

President Obama and the EPA released the Clean Power Plan in August 2015. On February 9, 2016 the Supreme Court issued a stay on implementation of the plan. Not surprisingly, the usual five conservative judges outvoted the other four. So what does this stay mean?

As a reminder, the Clean Power Plan is a set of EPA rules designed to curtail coal-based power plant emissions in an effort to combat man-made climate change. You can read more about the Plan here.

The stay isn't any kind of decision about the veracity of the Plan; it simply puts on hold implementation of the Plan until an appeals court rules on challenges to the regulations. Again not surprisingly, those challenges are being led largely by Republican states acting on the behest of the fossil fuel industry. Their main argument is that the EPA doesn't have the authority to regulate carbon emissions in power plants, this despite the fact that the EPA mandate clearly does give that authority and past Supreme Court decisions have ordered EPA to follow through on that authority.


The impact of this particular stay is mostly on timing, but that timing could be critical to successfully meeting our commitments to reduce carbon emissions to combat climate change. Given how long court cases take, including appeals back up to the Supreme Court, this could delay implementation for many months or even years. That's bad for the climate, and bad for the economy.

This is how lobbyists work - delay, delay, delay. The fact that they know they are wrong is irrelevant; their goal is to delay action as long as possible. Not coincidentally, delays mean continuation of massive fossil fuel profits just as decades of delaying tactics by tobacco companies allowed them to reap billions in ongoing profits while killing millions of people via smoking-induced cancers.

Beyond the delayed implementation, the bigger issue is that the Clean Power Plan in itself is woefully insufficient to meet our commitments anyway. It's one step, and one step only. It was an effort by the Obama administration to do what could be done to deal with climate change within the limits of the Executive branch of government. More substantive effort requires Congressional action.

And therein lies the rub. Republicans in Congress have made it clear they will deny reality and deny science and be blatantly dishonest in doing so in service to both their fossil fuel benefactors and their stated goal of denying any success to the President. Republicans have made it clear that they are more than willing to sacrifice the economy, health, environment, national security, and climate of the American people solely to maintain the profits of corporations. Ironically, Republicans are severely damaging future profits of those corporations - and all Americans - by holding back American innovation and handing development of future technology over to the Chinese and others.

In the long run, action to stem climate change will happen, if for no other reason that people who have moved out of places like Florida and the eastern coast of the US because of rising sea levels will force action. But why wait until after that happens to act? Why wait until the tub overflows and fills the bathroom before simply pulling out the plug or turning off the tap?

To not act now is irresponsible and counter to all things American.