CNN
—

The Supreme Court handed President Joe Biden a surprise victory Wednesday by allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily enforce its rules regulating pollution from power plants, which contributes to global warming.

The justices rejected an emergency request from more than 20 Republican attorneys general and industry groups that sought a temporary halt to Biden’s new power plant rules while a lower court challenge plays out.

The EPA’s new rules will require existing coal and natural gas power plants to reduce or capture 90% of their climate pollution by 2032. The rules are expected to reduce the sector’s carbon dioxide emissions by 75% per year. compared to a peak in 2005.

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch said in a brief statement that they believed the states and groups had “demonstrated a strong likelihood” of success on the merits of at least some of their challenges. But, Kavanaugh wrote, because the agency rule did not require them to take action until next year, there was no reason to rule in their favor right now on the court’s emergency docket .

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have granted the states and groups’ request. Justice Samuel Alito, another conservative, recused himself.

The Supreme Court rulings are the latest in a series of surprising victories won by the EPA in recent weeks over the High Court’s emergency docket. Earlier this month, the court left in place Biden administration rules that would reduce emissions of methane, a planet-warming gas, as well as mercury. There was no dissent as the court resolved these issues.

But it was the emissions appeals, filed in July, that were mostly closely watched by environmental groups.

In their Supreme Court filing, opponents said the EPA rules would be too costly for power plants and could force them to close. And they told the court that the EPA’s rules relied on “insufficiently demonstrated technologies in unfeasible time frames, effectively forcing plants into shutdowns.”

In a 2022 decision, the Supreme Court limited the EPA’s power to regulate pollution from power plants, but did not entirely strip the agency of the authority to do so. In developing the most recent power plant rules, which were finalized earlier this spring, the EPA tried to get as close to the law as possible, anticipating legal challenges.

In a recent interview with CNN, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said his agency “takes to heart” the 2022 decision restricting it, and flatly said his agency’s new rules are completely different from the Obama-era Clean Power Plan overturned by court.

“We’re looking at something completely different that’s on the right side of the law,” Regan said. “In anticipation of a skeptical court, we took our time when we issued this rule.”

After the major legal challenge to the Obama-era rules won before the Supreme Court in 2022, the new regulations give power producers the ability to choose how they meet pollution requirements .

The Biden administration’s proposal would push utilities to equip many power plants with expensive carbon capture technology or add clean hydrogen to reduce their emissions. The rules are paired with generous tax subsidies for carbon capture and hydrogen in Biden’s climate law to help reduce costs. But Republican attorneys general and the industry continue to argue that it costs factories too much.

“Our position remains the same: This rule deprives states of significant discretion when using technologies that do not work in the real world,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, one those responsible for the trial, in a press release.

The EPA also announced in February that it would delay its rulemaking process regarding carbon emissions from existing gas plants, which were initially covered by the agency’s proposal last year.

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., recently rejected a request from states and groups to suspend the rule.