--- title: Anthony Kennedy Retirement Could Affect Climate Change Fight description: A conservative replacement to Kennedy could pave the way for the EPA to nix climate change regulations canonical: https://time.com/5324154/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court-climate-change/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-06-27T22:45:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:42:21.909Z article:section: Politics og:title: Justice Kennedy's Replacement Could Make It Harder to Fight Climate Change og:description: He was a key vote in a landmark 5-4 decision. og:url: https://time.com/5324154/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court-climate-change/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0defa3438f9be517/69893417e76ad238136325ee/air-pollution-supreme-court.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: air pollution supreme court og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Justice Kennedy's Replacement Could Make It Harder to Fight Climate Change twitter:description: He was a key vote in a landmark 5-4 decision. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0defa3438f9be517/69893417e76ad238136325ee/air-pollution-supreme-court.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Justice Kennedy's Replacement Could Make It Harder to Fight Climate Change > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=b97accdf-dbcc-414c-8f39-7bb5f84843d0&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1)  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Jun 27, 2018 10:45 PM UTC  Steam billows out of the stacks at the FirstEnergy Corp. Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 2017. Steam billows out of the stacks at the FirstEnergy Corp. Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 2017. Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Jun 27, 2018 10:45 PM UTC The [retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy](http://time.com/5323824/anthony-kennedy-retiring-supreme-court-trump/) could allow the nation’s highest court to change its mind on whether the Environmental Protection Agency has to fight climate change. As a crucial swing vote, the Reagan appointee joined liberals in a landmark 5-4 decision in 2007 that the EPA is required to address climate change if its own scientists found that it posed a risk to public health. Two years later the agency made exactly that determination, issuing a scientific document known as the endangerment finding. “We’re not going to get another Kennedy who’s going to play that moderating role,” says Deborah Sivas, a professor of environmental law at Stanford University. “Since it’s a matter of statutory interpretation instead of bedrock constitutional principles I could see folks try to set up a new challenge.” The decision in _Massachusetts v. EPA_ underpinned a series of Obama-era climate regulations that aimed at boosting vehicle fuel economy standards, cutting carbon dioxide emissions form power plants and reducing methane emissions in the oil and gas sector. Officials working for President Donald Trump, [who has called climate change a “hoax” in the past](http://time.com/4959233/donald-trump-climate-change-hoax-question/), have sought to change some of those regulations, but it’s been a tricky path to do that without running afoul of the endangerment finding. Many conservatives consider _Massachusetts v. EPA_ and the endangerment finding an overreach. And the decision could easily find itself on the chopping block. In his dissent, then-Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the Clean Air Act, the basis of _Massachusetts v. EPA,_ does not mention climate change and instead targets more conventional air pollution, arguing the EPA is out of line to try to regulate greenhouse gases. In an [interview](http://time.com/4990265/scott-pruitt-clean-power-plan-epa/) with TIME last fall, Pruitt made an argument along those lines. “We’ve been spending many months evaluating Section 111 of the Clean Air Act to ask and answer the question what authority exists,” said Pruitt. “That is ongoing and will be ongoing for months into the future.” The result of the EPA losing authority to address climate change would effectively leave the U.S. without any federal tool to address climate change. That’s probably not an issue for Trump or Pruitt, but it would make a future Democratic president’s attempts to bring the U.S. back in line with the rest of the world on the issue that much harder. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5324154/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court-climate-change/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5324154/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court-climate-change/"},"headline":"Justice Kennedy's Replacement Could Make It Harder to Fight Climate Change","datePublished":"2018-06-27T22:45:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:42:21.909Z","description":"A conservative replacement to Kennedy could pave the way for the EPA to nix climate change regulations","url":"https://time.com/5324154/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court-climate-change/","keywords":["Supreme Court","Environment","climate change","justice","Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0defa3438f9be517/69893417e76ad238136325ee/air-pollution-supreme-court.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0defa3438f9be517/69893417e76ad238136325ee/air-pollution-supreme-court.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"air pollution supreme court","caption":"air pollution supreme court","creditText":"Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/supreme-court/","name":"Supreme Court"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5324154/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court-climate-change/","name":"Justice Kennedy's Replacement Could Make It Harder to Fight Climate Change"}}]}] ```