The administration of President Joe Biden sided with the administration of former President Donald Trump in a steel tariffs case, and the U.S. Supreme Court concurred.

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal filed by USP Holdings, which had been rejected by lower courts, alleging that the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it imposed tariffs. MSN noted that the Biden administration has, for the most part, maintained the tariffs and argued against USP Holdings and other steel importers who claimed the tariffs caused them harm.

“The Biden administration understands that simply lifting steel tariffs without any solution in place, particularly beyond the dialogue, could well mean layoffs and plant closures in Pennsylvania and in Ohio and other states where obviously the impact would be felt not only economically but politically,” Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said.

“Trump cited Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1962, which permits the president to impose restrictions on the importation of goods deemed essential to national security. He said at the time that the tariffs were needed to bolster the production of airplanes, ships, and military materials with U.S. steel. The tariffs created tension with some U.S. allies, although some countries were exempted from the policy,” the report added.

“The Supreme Court turned away the petition in USP Holdings Inc. v. United States, court file 22-565, in an unsigned order. The court didn’t explain its decision. No justices dissented from the order. In April 2017, then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross commenced an investigation to determine whether “steel was being imported under such circumstances as to threaten or impair national security,” according to the petition (pdf) filed with the Supreme Court,” it continued.

In addition, the Supreme Court has been active.

This term, the Supreme Court appears poised to issue decisions that could derail climate change lawsuits.

Boyden Gray, who served as counsel to the vice president during the Reagan administration and as White House counsel for President George H.W. Bush, detailed in a Fox News opinion piece how federal courts are unable to agree on whether climate change lawsuits are governed by state or federal law, suggesting that the Supreme Court will likely decide for them.

“For over a century, the Supreme Court has held that lawsuits over air (and water) pollution that crosses state lines must be decided under federal law. This means overreaching states and cities cannot impose their environmental agendas on their neighbors or otherwise hijack the domain of federal environmental law, federal regulations, and international treaties,” Gray wrote.

“The Supreme Court unanimously extended this principle in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut (AEP). That case, decided in 2011, involved federal-law claims by eight states, New York City, and others to compel certain power companies to abate their greenhouse-gas emissions. In an opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court concluded that applying federal law was appropriate, then agreed with the Obama administration that those claims couldn’t proceed in court at all because Congress has delegated the regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act,” he added.

Gray went on to describe two additional instances in which progressive states and cities have filed litigation seeking billions of dollars for alleged damages resulting from past, present, and future climate change.

However, they are now attempting to circumvent the point made by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by citing state law.

Gray penned:

More on this story via Conservative Brief:

The 2nd Circuit in 2021 dismissed such claims outright in City of New York v. Chevron Corp. There, New York City sued a handful of energy companies under state law for damages allegedly caused by climate change. The court concluded that “over a century” of Supreme Court precedent makes clear that federal law necessarily applies to lawsuits relating to air pollution that crosses state lines, which includes greenhouse-gas emissions. Following AEP, the Second Circuit dismissed the case. CONTINUE READING…