West Virginia v. EPA (2022)

In 2015 the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency issued the Clean Power Plan under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which lets the agency set standards based on the best system of emission reduction for existing power plants. The plan set state targets that assumed generation would shift from coal to gas and renewable sources. The Supreme Court stayed it in February 2016 before it took effect, the Trump administration repealed and replaced it in 2019, and after the D.C. Circuit struck down the replacement in 2021, West Virginia and other states asked the Court to rule on the agency's authority.

On June 30, 2022, the Court ruled 6 to 3, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, that the EPA lacked authority to adopt the generation-shifting approach. Invoking the major questions doctrine by name for the first time in a majority opinion, the Court held that in extraordinary cases involving vast economic and political significance, an agency must point to clear congressional authorization, and a vague or ancillary provision is not enough. Justice Neil Gorsuch, concurring, tied the doctrine to the nondelegation principle.

Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting, wrote that the Court was appointing itself instead of Congress or the expert agency the decision maker on climate policy. The doctrine was applied again in Biden v. Nebraska in 2023 to strike down student loan forgiveness. Since 2025 the EPA has moved to repeal greenhouse gas standards for power plants and to reconsider its 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health, actions that will raise the question of the agency's authority from the other direction. Supporters say the ruling restores Congress's role, while critics say it hampers responses to climate change.