Supreme Court to Obama Administration: You cannot rewrite laws to achieve your political agenda

Marita Noon cites the recent Supreme Court decision in Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as providing a cause for litigation against the EPA's proposed regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The key sentences in Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion are these: "When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate 'a significant portion of the American economy' . . . we typically greet its announcement with a measure of skepticism. We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign an agency decisions of vast 'economic and political significance'.”