In a political act poorly disguised as a legal opinion, the ultra-conservatives on the Supreme Court recently rules that government agencies like Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have grown too big and place too many restrictions on business. And they are just getting started exercising their usurped political power to tame the administrative state. Today, there are taking away one strategy EPA previously proposed to regulate climate; tomorrow they could restrict EPA’s ability to ensure clean water and clean air.
Meanwhile, the demand for strong climate governance is coming from the majority of U.S. citizens who are already suffering from extreme weather events — including floods, fires, droughts and heat waves — that would not be possible absent climate change. The demand for climate governance is not going away. It will continue to grow, and it will find other avenues to flow through, including at the state and local level.
Those of us dedicated to protecting the climate will continue to fight the climate fight. We will continue to gain ground. But we have to accept that the ultra-conservative majority on the Supreme Court are not going to help.
While conservatives think they’ve got a victory from this court, they should beware. Because when respect for law is lost and the rule of law eroded, all of civilization suffers. Law is the architecture for our society, and our civilization: losing it will come back to bite the conservatives, too. It also will hurt the business community, where more and more leaders and their employees, from large retailers to sustainability technology companies, know that their survival depends on fast, aggressive action this decade to protect the climate.
Those fighting to protect the climate will find other ways to succeed. As the great songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen put it, “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Durwood Zaelke is president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) in Washington, D.C. and Paris, as well as adjunct professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is co-author of “Cut Super Climate Pollutants Now!: The Ozone Treaty’s Urgent Lessons for Speeding Up Climate Action” (2021) and co-author of “International Environmental Law & Policy” (6th ed., with Hunter & Salzman). He has taught at various law schools, including Yale, Duke and American University, as well as in graduate programs at Johns Hopkins and University of California, Santa Barbara.
