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“It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.”
— Miracle Max,
The Princess Bride
The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (“CPP”) — an unprecedented use of the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions from power plants — is only “mostly dead” and could soon spring back to life. Yes, the Supreme Court stayed the CPP in 2016. And yes, the Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy rule (“ACE”) repealed the CPP in 2019. Between those two actions, the CPP seemed “all dead.” But the Supreme Court’s stay has almost certainly been dissolved, and the D.C. Circuit is on the verge of vacating ACE’s repeal of the CPP. If and when that happens, the CPP will return to legal life. Whether and how the CPP stays dead has important consequences for the Biden administration’s efforts to (re)impose GHG emission limitations on power plants.