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Page Number: 58

2 

WEST VIRGINIA v. EPA 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

human  influence”—in  particular,  the  emission  of  green-
house gases like carbon dioxide—“has warmed the atmos-
phere,  ocean  and  land.”  Intergovernmental  Panel  on  Cli-
mate  Change,  Sixth  Assessment  Report,  The  Physical
Science Basis: Headline Statements 1 (2021).  The Earth is 
now warmer than at any time “in the history of modern civ-
ilization,” with the six warmest years on record all occur-
ring in the last decade.  U. S. Global Change Research Pro-
gram,  Fourth  National  Climate  Assessment,  Vol.  I,  p. 10
(2017); Brief for Climate Scientists as Amici Curiae 8.  The 
rise  in  temperatures  brings  with  it  “increases  in  heat-
related  deaths,”  “coastal  inundation  and  erosion,”  “more 
frequent and intense hurricanes, floods, and other extreme 
weather  events,”  “drought,”  “destruction  of  ecosystems,”
and “potentially significant disruptions of food production.” 
American Elec. Power Co. v. Connecticut, 564 U. S. 410, 417 
(2011)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  If  the  current 
rate  of  emissions  continues,  children  born  this  year  could 
live to see parts of the Eastern seaboard swallowed by the 
ocean.  See Brief for Climate Scientists as Amici Curiae 6. 
Rising  waters,  scorching  heat,  and  other  severe  weather 
conditions  could  force  “mass  migration  events[,]  political
crises, civil unrest,” and “even state failure.”  Dept. of De-
fense, Climate Risk Analysis 8 (2021).  And by the end of 
this century, climate change could be the cause of “4.6 mil-
lion excess yearly deaths.”  See R. Bressler, The Mortality
Cost  of  Carbon,  12  Nature  Communications  4467,  p. 5
(2021).

Congress charged EPA with addressing those potentially 
catastrophic harms, including through regulation of fossil-
fuel-fired  power  plants.  Section  111  of  the  Clean  Air  Act 
directs EPA to regulate stationary sources of any substance
that  “causes,  or  contributes  significantly  to,  air  pollution” 
and that “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public
health or welfare.”  42 U. S. C. §7411(b)(1)(A).  Carbon di-
oxide and other greenhouse gases fit that description.  See