Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 5

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

5 

Syllabus 

unheralded power representing a transformative expansion of its reg-
ulatory  authority  in  the  vague  language  of  a  long-extant,  but  rarely 
used,  statute  designed  as  a  gap  filler.    That  discovery  allowed  it  to
adopt a regulatory program that Congress had conspicuously declined
to  enact  itself.    Given  these  circumstances,  there  is  every  reason  to 
“hesitate before concluding that Congress” meant to confer on EPA the 
authority  it  claims  under  Section  111(d).  Brown  &  Williamson,  529 
U. S., at 160. 

Prior  to  2015,  EPA  had  always  set  Section  111  emissions  limits 
based on the application of measures that would reduce pollution by 
causing the regulated source to operate more cleanly, see, e.g., 41 Fed. 
Reg. 48706—never by looking to a “system” that would reduce pollu-
tion  simply  by  “shifting”  polluting  activity  “from  dirtier  to  cleaner 
sources.”  80 Fed. Reg. 64726.  The Government quibbles with this his-
tory, pointing to the 2005 Mercury Rule as one Section 111 rule that it
says relied upon a cap-and-trade mechanism to reduce emissions.  See 
70  Fed.  Reg.  28616.    But  in  that  regulation,  EPA  set  the  emissions
limit—the “cap”—based on the use of “technologies [that could be] in-
stalled  and  operational  on  a  nationwide  basis”  in  the  relevant 
timeframe.  Id., at 28620–28621.  By contrast, and by design, there are 
no particular controls a coal plant operator can install and operate to 
attain the emissions limits established by the Clean Power Plan.  In-
deed,  the  Agency  nodded  to  the  novelty  of  its  approach  when  it  ex-
plained that it was pursuing a “broader, forward-thinking approach to 
the design” of Section 111 regulations that would “improve the overall 
power  system,”  rather  than  the  emissions  performance  of  individual
sources, by forcing a shift throughout the power grid from one type of 
energy source to another.  80 Fed. Reg. 64703 (emphasis added).  This 
view of EPA’s authority was not only unprecedented; it also effected a 
“fundamental  revision  of  the  statute,  changing  it  from  [one  sort  of] 
scheme  of  . . . regulation”  into  an  entirely  different  kind.    MCI  Tele-
communications  Corp.  v.  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Co.,  512 
U. S. 218, 231. 

The  Government  attempts  to  downplay  matters,  noting  that  the 
Agency must limit the magnitude of generation shift it demands to a 
level that will not be “exorbitantly costly” or “threaten the reliability 
of the grid.”  Brief for Federal Respondents 42.  This argument does
not limit the breadth of EPA’s claimed authority so much as reveal it: 
On EPA’s view of Section 111(d), Congress implicitly tasked it, and it
alone, with balancing the many vital considerations of national policy 
implicated in the basic regulation of how Americans get their energy. 
There is little reason to think Congress did so.  EPA has admitted that 
issues  of  electricity  transmission,  distribution,  and  storage  are  not 
within its traditional expertise.  And this Court doubts that “Congress