2026-04-20T18:15:31-04:00 / 福克斯新闻频道
这起2016年以5票对4票作出的裁决，如今被视为紧急“影子案卷”塑造国家政策的早期案例
作者：阿什利·奥利弗 福克斯新闻
发布于2026年4月20日美国东部时间下午6:15
福克斯新闻主持人威尔·凯恩在《威尔·凯恩秀》中讨论了最高法院关于出生公民权案件及第十四修正案范围的口头辩论。
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2016年，最高法院下达紧急命令，阻止前总统巴拉克·奥巴马标志性的清洁能源计划，而这一决定背后是大法官们之间一系列泄露的内部备忘录，暴露了他们在是否干预该案上的意识形态分歧。
《纽约时报》获得的这些罕见的最高法院内部备忘录披露，由前总统乔治·W·布什任命的首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨敦促最高法院叫停奥巴马的这项计划，而自由派大法官则予以反驳。
最新披露的备忘录显示，罗伯茨和法院的保守派不仅担忧奥巴马的这项政策本身，还担心《清洁电力计划》可能在大法官们全面审查其合法性之前就重塑电力行业。
“如果不暂停执行，《清洁电力计划》将（并且正在）在本院有机会审查其合法性之前，引发国内电力行业的实质性且不可逆转的重组，”罗伯茨在《纽约时报》周五公布的其中一份备忘录中写道。
杰克逊-卡瓦诺紧张关系在关于最高法院“影子案卷”的坦诚交流中浮出水面
(温·麦克纳米/盖蒂图片社)
福克斯新闻数字频道周一联系了最高法院通讯团队，征求其对此次泄密事件的置评。
罗伯茨推动叫停该计划之际，大法官们当时正在考虑来自红色州和外部团体的一项不同寻常的紧急案卷申请——有时被称为“影子案卷”——要求在下级法院完成全面审理之前，叫停这项旨在未来25年内减少碳排放的奥巴马时代监管规定。自由派大法官当时警告称，这一做法将背离长期以来的惯例。
紧急案卷程序允许诉讼方绕过常规法庭程序，在下级法院通过限制令或初步禁令阻止他们时，直接向最高法院寻求即时救济。
《清洁电力计划》本将要求奥巴马政府时期的环境保护局根据《清洁空气法》对煤炭、石油和天然气发电厂进行监管。罗伯茨写道，如果最高法院不介入，“各州和私营企业都将因一项在我看来极不可能存活下去的规则遭受不可挽回的损害。”
在另一份备忘录中，由奥巴马任命的大法官埃琳娜·卡根表示反对，称“这些申请中寻求的救济的特殊性质让我深感疑虑。”
乔纳森·特利：首席大法官罗伯茨在泄密事件上可向棒球名将泰德·威廉姆斯学习
(亚当·格雷/彭博社通过盖蒂图片社拍摄，2025年11月1日周六，前总统巴拉克·奥巴马在一场竞选活动中。)
由前总统乔治·W·布什任命的大法官塞缪尔·阿利托在与卡根同一天 circulated 的一份备忘录中，与罗伯茨立场一致。
“如果不暂停执行这项规则，我们提供有意义司法审查的能力——进而我们的机构合法性——将面临沦为一纸空文的风险，”阿利托写道。
短短几天内，大法官们便以5票对4票的意识形态分歧临时叫停了奥巴马的《清洁电力计划》，实际上给该计划判了死刑，因为民主党人将在当年晚些时候失去白宫宝座。《纽约时报》指出，奥巴马政府当时将该裁决斥为一个小障碍，但“私下里，官员们对法院如此迅速地介入感到震惊。”
从2016年1月底到2月9日简短裁决发布的短短时间内，备忘录中的来回交锋显示，大法官们迅速行动起来对一项重大总统举措发表意见。
乔治华盛顿大学法学教授乔纳森·特利在一篇专栏文章中写道，匿名向《纽约时报》泄露备忘录——这是2022年多布斯堕胎权裁决泄密事件后的第二次机密材料泄密——“显然旨在伤害其中一些成员。”
“对于一个以保密性和封闭性为荣的机构来说，法院在这些泄密事件中显得越来越容易泄密且带有党派色彩，”特利写道。
书籍披露：卡根在多布斯泄密事件后对自由派盟友大喊大叫，“墙壁都在震动”
(杰奎琳·马丁/泳池/法新社通过盖蒂图片社拍摄，2025年2月13日，大法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊在华盛顿特区国会图书馆举行的2025年最高法院研究员项目上发表讲话。)
《纽约时报》的报道强调，法律专家长期以来一直将《清洁电力计划》裁决视为最高法院利用紧急案卷限制行政部门对国家政策权力的首批案例之一。
由前总统乔·拜登任命的大法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊，是唐纳德·特朗普第二任期内紧急案件中最直言不讳的异议者之一，因为特朗普经常从快速推进的案卷程序中获益。杰克逊有时会与她的两位自由派同事卡根和索尼娅·索托马约尔大法官一同提出异议，而紧急案件通常以6票对3票的结果支持特朗普。
上周，杰克逊在另一个场合表达了她的不满，在耶鲁法学院的一次演讲中抨击紧急案卷裁决过于仓促，是“草稿纸上的胡思乱想”，破坏了最高法院的宗旨。
“考虑到暂缓执行申请要求法院考虑的现实情况，法院的暂缓执行决定有时会显得完全不合理，”杰克逊说。“如果我们在没有明确解释的情况下，始终批准有害行为，我们就不能指望公众对我们的司法系统抱有信心。”
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法律专家将紧急案卷活动的增加归因于越来越多的总统试图通过行政命令塑造国家政策。
“[紧急动议的增加]与行政命令和其他形式的单方面行政行动的兴起相吻合，这些行动实际上已成为我国主要的立法形式，而国会已不复存在，这给法院带来了巨大挑战，”律师坎农·尚穆加姆在去年秋天的联邦主义者协会小组讨论中说道。
福克斯新闻数字频道联系了奥巴马的办公室征求置评。
阿什利·奥利弗是福克斯新闻数字频道和福克斯商业频道的记者，负责报道司法部和法律事务。可将新闻线索发送至ashley.oliver@fox.com。
Leaked memos reveal how Supreme Court steamrolled Obama climate plan in 2016 showdown
2026-04-20T18:15:31-04:00 / Fox News
The 5-4 decision in 2016 is now seen as an early example of the emergency ‘shadow docket’ shaping national policy
By Ashley Oliver Fox News
Published April 20, 2026 6:15pm EDT
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The Supreme Court’s emergency order blocking former President Barack Obama’s signature clean energy initiative in 2016 came after a series of leaked internal memos among the justices that revealed a fight along ideological lines about whether to intervene.
The rare glimpse at the high court’s internal memos, obtained by the New York Times, showed Chief Justice John Roberts, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, urging the Supreme Court to block Obama’s effort, while liberal justices pushed back.
Roberts and the court’s conservatives were concerned not just with Obama’s policy itself, but with the possibility that the Clean Power Plan could reshape the power sector before the justices could fully review whether it was lawful, the newly revealed memos show.
“Absent a stay, the Clean Power Plan will cause (and is causing) substantial and irreversible reordering of the domestic power sector before this court has an opportunity to review its legality,” Roberts wrote in one of the memos published by the New York Times on Friday.
JACKSON-KAVANAUGH TENSIONS SURFACE IN CANDID EXCHANGE OVER SUPREME COURT ‘SHADOW DOCKET’
(Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to the Supreme Court’s communications team Monday for comment on the leaks.
The push from Roberts came as the justices were considering what was viewed at the time as an unusual request on the emergency docket, sometimes called a “shadow docket,” from red states and outside groups to halt the Obama-era regulation, which aimed to cut carbon emissions over the next 25 years, before lower courts had fully weighed in, a step that the liberal justices warned would break from longstanding practice.
The emergency docket allows litigants to bypass typical court proceedings and seek immediate relief from the Supreme Court if lower courts block them through restraining orders or preliminary injunctions.
The Clean Power Plan would have involved the Obama Environmental Protection Agency regulating coal, oil and gas plants under the Clean Air Act. Roberts wrote that without the Supreme Court stepping in, “both the states and private industry will suffer irreparable harm from a rule that is — in my view — highly unlikely to survive.”
In another memo, Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, disagreed, saying “the unique nature of the relief sought in these applications gives me real pause.”
JONATHAN TURLEY: CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS COULD LEARN FROM BASEBALL GREAT TED WILLIAMS WHEN IT COMES TO LEAKS
Former President Barack Obama during a campaign event on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025.(Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Justice Samuel Alito, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, circulated a memo the same day as Kagan in which he agreed with Roberts.
“A failure to stay this rule threatens to render our ability to provide meaningful judicial review — and by extension, our institutional legitimacy — a nullity,” Alito wrote.
Within a matter of days, the justices temporarily blocked Obama’s Clean Power Plan 5-4 along ideological lines, effectively dealing it a death blow because Democrats would lose the White House later that year. The New York Times noted that the Obama White House dismissed the ruling at the time as a small hurdle but that “behind closed doors, officials were astonished that the court had intervened so quickly.”
The back-and-forth in the memos during the short period of time, from the end of January 2016 to Feb. 9, when the brief decision was issued, showed how fast the justices moved to weigh in on a major presidential action.
Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University, wrote in an op-ed that the anonymous leak of the memos to the New York Times, the second leak of confidential material after the Dobbs opinion leak in 2022, was “clearly designed to wound some of its members.”
“For an institution that prides itself on its confidentiality and insularity, the court is looking increasingly porous and partisan in these leaks,” Turley wrote.
KAGAN SCREAMED SO LOUDLY AT LIBERAL ALLY AFTER DOBBS LEAK THE ‘WALL WAS SHAKING,’ BOOK CLAIMS
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks to the 2025 Supreme Court Fellows Program, on February 13, 2025, at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.(JACQUELYN MARTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The New York Times’ report highlighted that legal experts have long viewed the Clean Power Plan decision as one of the first examples of the Supreme Court using the emergency docket in a way that limits executive power over national policy.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, has been among the most vocal dissenters in emergency cases during President Donald Trump’s second term as the president frequently benefits from the fast-paced docket. Jackson is sometimes joined by her two liberal colleagues, Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissents, and emergency cases have often split 6-3 in favor of Trump.
Last week, Jackson aired her grievances in a different forum, blasting emergency docket decisions during a Yale Law School speech as rushed, “scratch-paper musings” that undermine the high court’s purpose.
“Given the real world facts that a stay request asks the court to consider, the court’s stay decisions can, at times, come across utterly irrational,” Jackson said. “We cannot expect the public to have faith in our judicial system if, without clear explanation, we consistently greenlight harmful acts.”
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Legal experts have attributed the heightened activity on the emergency docket to a rise in presidents attempting to shape national policy through through executive orders.
“[An increase in emergency motions] coincides with the rise of executive orders and other forms of unilateral executive action really as the primary form of lawmaking in our country with the disappearance of Congress, and that has posed enormous challenges for the court,” attorney Kannon Shanmugam said during a Federalist Society panel last fall.
Fox News Digital reached out to Obama’s office for comment.
Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to ashley.oliver@fox.com.