Justice John Paul Stevens authored the 5-4 opinion, joined by three other liberal Justices and Anthony Kennedy, holding that petitioners had standing to challenge EPA’s denial of their rulemaking petition, since at least one petitioner state (Massachusetts) properly asserted a concrete injury from the potential further loss of its coastal land, much of which was owned by the state, from rising sea levels caused by climate change. Further, because GHGs are within the CAA’s broad definition of an air pollutant, EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles, and there was no showing of congressional intent to bar EPA from addressing global warming. Finally, the Court held that global warming threatens serious harms and executive policy considerations are irrelevant to EPA’s mandate to determine whether the GHGs contribute to global warming. Therefore, EPA did not reasonably decline to initiate rulemaking vis-à-vis GHG emissions.
Potential takeaways for future climate migration litigation
- Massachusetts innovated a “special solicitude” for states seeking standing. This standard has presented difficulties for non-state plaintiffs in climate change suits (see Washington Environmental Council v. Bellon). The dissent, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, would not have even granted this deference to Massachusetts, however. In the conservative view, now ascendant at the Supreme Court, global warming is a generalized – as opposed to concrete and particular – harm. So, plaintiffs may have difficulty establishing a causal connection between, for example, emissions from the U.S. auto sector and their injuries from climate change, such as forced displacement.
- Massachusetts is one of the only major cases in the United States to recognize the reality of climate change and its impacts on coastal lands, relying on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to support the scientific consensus on the harmful impact of GHG emissions. This dictum may be useful in displacement and migration suits alleging specific harms from climate change.