By Krish Gupta
With the recent leak of the revised draft of Roe v. Wade, women all around the country have to worry about whether they will have the power to make decisions about their own bodies. It will soon be up to state governments to decide whether women can or cannot have abortions, which would control women even more than patriarchal governance already does. If the conservative Supreme Court can overturn such an important court case that affects people all across the country, what is stopping them from overturning other important cases? What if they overturn essential environmental decisions? Unfortunately, even before the overturning of Roe v. Wade became a possibility, necessary Supreme Court environmental cases mostly relating to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been in the works to be overturned. Going backward in emissions regulations in the U.S. would erase all the hard work that has already been done to protect the environment.
The EPA was created by former President Richard Nixon in 1970 and has the purpose of enforcing the Clean Air Act. The EPA had to put regulations on emissions for states to reduce air pollution to protect public health and the environment. In 1999, a large group of private organizations and many states petitioned the Supreme Court that the EPA had not been properly regulating emissions related to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Eventually, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency was presented to the Supreme Court. Massachusetts claimed that since the EPA had not regulated greenhouse gas emissions, they were in danger of losing important coastal land due to rising sea levels. In 2007, the court ruled that the Clean Air Act included regulating carbon dioxide, and therefore the EPA was responsible for regulating greenhouse gases. Massachusetts won the case. Over the past several years, the EPA has played an extremely important role in the fight for climate justice in the U.S. According to research by Evergreen Action, the EPA has reduced harmful emissions by 63 percent from 1988 to 2015, which reinforces the significance of the EPA in the climate change movement (Evergreen Action, 2022).
The majority of Americans, support limiting air pollutants because of public health concerns. However, one group does not support all of this emission regulation: the large corporations that emit greenhouse gasses. These powerful, carbon-emitting companies decided to use the Supreme Court to advance their harmful agendas. Over the past few years, the Supreme Court has slowly become conservative-leaning, consisting of six Republicans and three Democrats. The problem with this is that many of the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court support these large corporations that are against the important climate legislation. The six Republican justices are all members of the Federalist Society–– an organization formed by a group of lawyers from top law schools with the goal of promoting conservative beliefs in the United States. The Federalist Society is used synonymously with the Republican Party. The Federalist Society does not believe that reproductive freedoms are sanctioned in the Constitution, and that is one of the main reasons why Roe v. Wade is in the works to be overturned as speculated by a recent Washington Post investigation.
What does this conservatism and literal Constitutional interpretation mean for the environment? Nothing good. The Federalist Society is also against the EPA regulating emissions at the scale that they are now. We have already witnessed that the Supreme Court is planning to overturn Roe v. Wade–– a crucial decision in the fight for women’s reproductive rights–– so it is very likely that the majority Republican Supreme Court will decide to limit the control that the EPA has over emissions. If the EPA loses its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., much of the important work that has been done after the Massachusetts v. EPA decision will go out the window. Emissions could spiral out of control in the U.S., leading to the loss of homes across the country and the loss of many lives. This will not just affect the U.S., but it could extend across the entire world to countries that are at more risk of climate change.
The newest climate-related supreme court case, West Virginia v. EPA, which was just heard by the Supreme Court in February of 2022, is evidence of this. A recent NPR article stated that many Republican states and large corporations argued that the EPA has too much control over emission regulations and that they should not have been granted the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions across the country (NPR, 2022). This became the main argument for the Supreme Court case West Virginia v. EPA, which directly opposes the pro-regulation decision made in Massachusetts v. EPA. The Supreme Court decided to give the EPA control over greenhouse gas emissions in 2007; however, the current Supreme Court is likely to do the exact opposite, and settle in favor of West Virginia. This is catastrophic for climate action.
Women across the U.S. are extremely disappointed and terrified by the recent news of Roe v. Wade. If the Supreme Court strikes down the decision, the lives of women everywhere will change to varying degrees, with low income and BIPOC women suffering the most. Unfortunately, something similar is likely to happen with the new Supreme Court case West Virginia v. EPA, but instead of reproductive justice at risk, environmental justice will be. Many already predict that the Supreme Court will decide that the EPA should not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., which will lead to environmental damage across the country and even the entire world. The Supreme Court is also likely to reject any other attempts at new environmental legislation in the U.S.
We are going backward in our fight against climate change and reproductive rights. If nothing is done to stop the Supreme Court from making these decisions, the energy we use and greenhouse gases that we emit into the atmosphere will be left unchecked and women will not be liberated. The combined effects of these rules will lead to millions of worldwide deaths among hundreds of other consequences. Even though the Supreme Court is conservative, it must become clear that known that climate change and reproductive health are not just a matter of “conservative or a liberal.” It is necessary our judicial branch takes the action required to maintain EPA’s regulatory ability over emissions, and women’s regulatory ability over their bodies.
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