By Jonathan H. Adler, Washington Post.

Tuesday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay, halting implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan pending the resolution of legal challenges to the program in court. The CPP is arguably the Obama administration’s signature environmental initiative, representing the EPA’s most ambitious effort to control greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Five separate stay applications were filed by more than two dozen states and numerous industry groups. Other states, environmental groups and some energy companies opposed the stay.

The order reads as follows:

The application for a stay submitted to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted. The Environmental Protection Agency’s “Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units,” 80 Fed. Reg. 64,662 (October 23, 2015), is stayed pending disposition of the applicants’ petitions for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and disposition of the applicants’ petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is sought. If a writ of certiorari is sought and the Court denies the petition, this order shall terminate automatically. If the Court grants the petition for a writ of certiorari, this order shall terminate when the Court enters its judgment.