This April, the Environmental Law Clinic filed an amicus brief on behalf of a group of nationally renowned administrative law professors in a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals case dealing with the Trump administration’s repeal of the Clean Power Plan.

The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan sought to reduce energy sector carbon emissions, in part by shifting energy production from fossil fuel plants to low-emissions renewable sources.  But before it could take effect, the rule was repealed by the Trump administration.

The Trump administration’s legal justification for the policy change is that the Clean Air Act does not allow the regulatory approach put forth by the Obama administration.  That justification is the subject of the challenge before the D.C. Circuit in American Lung Association v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Environmental Law Clinic’s amicus brief considers one small piece of the case—the Trump EPA’s reliance on the so-called “Major Questions Doctrine.”  This unusual administrative law doctrine has been applied on just a handful of occasions, when federal agencies acted far beyond the bounds of their established authority. “The major questions doctrine is hard to untangle because the Supreme Court has never really explained when it applies,” said clinic student Nick Wallace. But the Trump EPA’s version of the doctrine would expand it into a general rule to restrict the regulatory authority of federal agencies.

Clinic students Nick Wallace and John Hare-Grogg, who wrote the brief, argued that such a general rule would undermine accepted principles of administrative law, while burdening courts and agencies with a new host of difficult questions.

“This was a rewarding case to work on because the reasoning the court adopts could affect agencies’ ability to address significant problems like climate change,” said Hare-Grogg. “It’s fulfilling to help ensure that agencies carry out the regulatory responsibilities that Congress gave them.”

Read more about the Clean Power Plan and the Major Questions Doctrine here.