The Supreme Court of the United States’s 2016 emergency order blocking a major clean energy initiative from former President Barack Obama followed internal disagreements among the justices, according to documents obtained by The New York Times
The Supreme Court of the United States’s 2016 emergency order blocking a major clean energy
The Supreme Court of the United States’s 2016 emergency order blocking a major clean energy initiative from former President Barack Obama followed internal disagreements among the justices, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
The very rare glimpse via internal memos showed Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, urging the Court to intervene, while the Court’s liberal justices opposed taking that step.
According to the documents, Roberts and other conservative justices expressed concern that the Clean Power Plan could significantly reshape the energy sector before the Court had an opportunity to fully review its legality.
“Absent a stay, the Clean Power Plan will cause (and is causing) substantial and irreversible reordering of the domestic power sector before this court has an opportunity to review its legality,” Roberts wrote in one memo that was inappropriately leaked to the Times.
The push from Chief Justice John Roberts came as the Supreme Court of the United States considered what was widely viewed as an unusual request on its emergency, or “shadow,” docket. The request—filed by several Republican-led states and outside groups—sought to halt the Obama-era regulation before lower courts had completed their review, a move liberal justices warned would depart from longstanding judicial practice, Fox News noted.
The Court’s emergency docket allows parties to seek immediate relief from the justices, often before a case has fully worked its way through lower courts, particularly when lower rulings have imposed temporary blocks such as restraining orders or preliminary injunctions.
The policy at issue, known as the Clean Power Plan, was developed by the Environmental
The policy at issue, known as the Clean Power Plan, was developed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The sweeping measure aimed to reduce carbon emissions over time by regulating coal-, oil-, and gas-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act to a point that would see many of them close without alternative plants replacing them.
Republicans argued at the time the measure would gut energy production in the country and prices would skyrocket. Roberts wrote that without the Supreme Court stepping in, “both the states and private industry will suffer irreparable harm from a rule that is — in my view — highly unlikely to survive.”
Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, disagreed, saying “the unique nature of the relief sought in these applications gives me real pause.” Justice Samuel Alito, another George W. Bush appointee, circulated a memo on the same day as Kagan, agreeing with Roberts.
“A failure to stay this rule threatens to render our ability to provide meaningful judicial review — and by extension, our institutional legitimacy — a nullity,” Alito wrote.
Within days, the Court issued a 5–4 ruling along ideological lines, temporarily blocking the plan from taking effect.
At the time, the White House publicly characterized the ruling as a limited setback. However, reporting from Times indicated that behind closed doors, administration officials were surprised by how quickly the Court acted.
The internal memos, dated from late January to Feb
The internal memos, dated from late January to Feb. 9, 2016, illustrate the rapid pace at which the justices considered and intervened in a major federal policy, Fox noted.
Georgetown Law School professor and Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley wrote in an op-ed that the leak of confidential Court memos appeared intended to damage some members of the Court.
Turley noted it was the second major disclosure of confidential Supreme Court material following the 2022 leak of the Dobbs draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade and argued that the latest release was “clearly designed to wound some of its members.”
“For an institution that prides itself on its confidentiality and insularity, the court is looking increasingly porous and partisan in these leaks,” Turley wrote.
The New York Times’ report emphasized that legal experts have long considered the decision on the Clean Power Plan as one of the first instances where the Supreme Court utilized the emergency docket to limit executive power over national policy.
