Insofar as the Court was concerned about pretext, it may be more difficult for the EPA to reduce greenhouse gases using regulatory authority to control emissions.
The Supreme Court's decision rejecting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's emergency vax-or-test mandate showed that a majority of the Supreme Court is skeptical of broad, unprecedented assertions of agency authority. Although the Court could have chosen to invalidate the OSHA rule on more narrow statutory grounds, the brief per curiam swept more broadly. The Court did not fully eviscerate OSHA's ability to reduce the workplace risks of Covid-19 (loud claims to the contrary notwithstanding), but it did adopt a relatively narrow view of an agency's delegated authority, curtailing OSHA's ability to address Covid-19 on the margin, and suggesting broader shifts within administrative law may be on the way.
Insofar as the Court's decision rested on a "major questions" rationale -- the idea that broad agency authority must be expressly authorized by Congress -- it would seem to spell bad news for the EPA in the greenhouse gas regulation case to be heard next month. If a majority of the Court concluded that OSHA could not impose a vax-or-test requirement on all large employers as an emergency occupational health standard, it is unlikely to conclude that the EPA's authority to control emissions from power plants allows it to mandate broader changes within energy systems. Indeed, the major questions doctrine (as applied by the current Court) seems tailor made for West Virginia v. EPA. But NFIB v. OSHA may have even broader consequences for future regulatory efforts to control greenhouse gases.
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