Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 61

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

most effective and efficient way to reduce power plants’ car-
bon dioxide emissions.  And no other provision in the Clean
Air Act suggests that Congress meant to foreclose EPA from
selecting that system; to the contrary, the Plan’s regulatory
approach  fits  hand-in-glove  with  the  rest  of  the  statute. 
The majority’s decision rests on one claim alone: that gen-
eration shifting is just too new and too big a deal for Con-
gress to have authorized it in Section 111’s general terms. 
But that is wrong.  A key reason Congress makes broad del-
egations like Section 111 is so an agency can respond, ap-
propriately and commensurately, to new and big problems.
Congress  knows  what  it  doesn’t  and  can’t  know  when  it 
drafts  a  statute;  and  Congress  therefore  gives  an  expert 
agency  the  power  to  address  issues—even  significant
ones—as and when they arise.  That is what Congress did 
in enacting Section 111.  The majority today overrides that 
legislative choice.  In so doing, it deprives EPA of the power 
needed—and  the  power  granted—to  curb  the  emission  of 
greenhouse gases. 

I 
The Clean Air Act was major legislation, designed to deal
with a major public policy issue.  As Congress explained, its
goal  was  to  “speed  up,  expand,  and  intensify  the  war 
against air pollution” in all its forms.  H. R. Rep. No. 91– 
1146, p. 1 (1970).  Or as this Court similarly recognized, the
Act was a “drastic remedy to what was perceived as a seri-
ous and otherwise uncheckable problem.”  Union Elec. Co. 
v. EPA, 427 U. S. 246, 256 (1976).  The Act, as the majority
describes, established three major regulatory programs to
control  air  pollution  from  stationary  sources  like  power 
plants.  See ante, at 2–6.  The National Ambient Air Quality 
Standards (NAAQS) and Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP) 
programs prescribe standards for specified pollutants, not 
including carbon dioxide.  Section 111’s New Source Perfor-
mance  Standards  program  provides  an  additional  tool  for