Supreme Court Blocks E.P.A.’s ‘Good Neighbor’ Plan on Air Pollution

Three states challenged the administration’s “good neighbor” plan, meant to protect downwind states from harmful emissions.

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A coal-fired power plant in Cheshire, Ohio. Ohio is one of three states that challenged the federal plan directly in an appeals court before the Supreme Court stepped in.

The Supreme Court temporarily put on hold on Thursday an Environmental Protection Agency plan to curtail air pollution that drifts across state lines, dealing another blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to protect the environment.

The ruling followed recent decisions chipping away at the agency’s authority to address climate change and water pollution.

Under the proposal, known as the “good neighbor” plan, factories and power plants in Western and Midwestern states must cut ozone pollution that drifts into Eastern ones. The emissions cause smog and are linked to asthma, lung disease and premature death.

The ruling was provisional, but even the temporary loss for the administration will suspend the plan for many months and maybe longer.

The vote was 5 to 4. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the court’s ruling was modest, pausing the administration’s plan in light of developments in lower courts. He said the Supreme Court’s stay would remain in place while a federal appeals court in Washington considered the matter and, after that, until the Supreme Court acts on any appeal.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by the court’s three liberal members, issued a spirited dissent predicting that the majority had created a “yearslong exercise in futility.”

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