Over the course of the Supreme Court’s current term, environmental issues have so far taken a back seat to broader battles over the limits of the president’s powers.
But how the justices decide pending battles over President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imported goods and the scope of his authority to sack leaders at independent agencies will carry massive repercussions for environmental law, legal scholars say.
So far, the high court’s conservative supermajority has largely indicated that it is “not eager to curb the Trump administration,” said Daniel Farber, a law professor at University of California, Berkeley. “That’s why I think the tariff case is so significant. It’s our first real chance to see if they are going to try to draw some lines.”
During oral arguments in November, the justices seemed inclined to rule against Trump on tariffs and open to using the major questions doctrine — a legal theory the court used in 2022 to invalidate an Obama-era climate rule for power plants — to do so.
