Environmentalists world-wide may have been shocked to hear the news that the Obama Administration has chosen to side with major utility companies rather than protect the environment. The decision contradicts his initiative for green energy, eco-activists claim, arguing that the decision would hurt the cause to reduce green-house gas emissions or even formally bring legal suit to it in future instances.

The legal case, brought recently before the US Supreme Court on Thursday, in which the Federal Government officially backed the utility companies, in theory stated that there was no need to go after them. The Administration has been very clear on the matter reiterating the incremental steps the Environmental Protection Agency has been regulating to restrain carbon dioxide emissions, and as such made the lawsuit unnecessary. As a result, the Supreme Court was asked by the solicitor general to return the case back to the US Court of Appeals for the 2^nd Circuit Courts.

The EPA’s announcement, however, doesn’t limit the amount of emissions currently being produced by existing power plants and other utility companies environmentalists are concerned about. Furthermore, their worries persist having to mitigate the precedent laid by the recent ruling in which could be used to jeopardize the basis for legal action on behalf of environmentalists for future endeavors. The government’s arguments for having the case dropped it seems have formed the basis for a legal argument all but set in stone and are iron-clad fear many environmental activists.

“We’re very angry and very disappointed that they would take this tack,” said David Doniger, policy director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. An EPA official, on behalf of requesting anonymity, spoke on behalf of the recently ruling stating the government is taking “a series of regulatory actions indicating that it’s moving forward on greenhouse gases and really making it inappropriate for the courts to step in and take on this issue.”

The Solicitor General won the case brought before the Supreme Court by invoking the Clean Air Act, in which gives the right to regulate green house gas emissions to the EPA alone. To go further, the Department of Justice has pushed that states no longer be allowed to sue private companies for the harm their emissions “allegedly” cause within their state borders. The Justice Department says judges have no clear standards in which they can measure the amount of harm done by utility companies and as such makes it difficult to award damages let alone accurate verdicts. Power companies have already asked the court to dismiss the suit. In addition, the Obama Administration has also argued for a dismissal of the suit altogether. However the Administration has also suggesting that the Supreme Court should wait until the Circuit Courts addressed the issue first.

The lawsuit brought against the power companies to reduce their green house gas emissions by 3% over 10 years is a stricter attempt at regulation than what the EPA has been pursuing. Rather than incentivize the suit for utility companies to play ball, so to speak, with the government, the Federal government instead is blatantly siding with power companies altogether in dismissing the case against them outright. The government should be pushing the suit against the power companies to leverage them into pursuing higher standards on the restrictions of green house gas emissions.