Clarence Thomas Breaks With Supreme Court Justices in New Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to put a hold on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new rule regarding greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants as some states challenge the law’s legality.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas broke with the rest of the court in the decision on Wednesday, according to the court’s opinion. Justices ruled in a 7-1 vote that it was not necessary to grant an emergency stay request from West Virginia, Indiana and dozens of other states and industry groups to halt the EPA rule while litigation on the issue continues in lower court.
The EPA rule, which the Biden administration passed in April, requires that new and exciting coal and natural gas power plants cut or capture 90 percent of their climate pollution by 2032.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the court’s opinion, said that since the “applicants need not start compliance work” related to the EPA standards until next summer, “they are unlikely to suffer irreparable harm before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decides the merits.”
Thomas would have granted the stay. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito “took no part in the consideration or decision of these applications,” the court’s order read.
This is a developing story.