WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has given the Environmental Protection Agency an important victory in its effort to reduce power plant pollution that contributes to unhealthy air in neighboring states.

The court's 6-2 decision Tuesday means that a rule adopted by EPA in 2011 to limit emissions from plants in more than two-dozen Midwestern and Southern states can take effect. The pollution drifts into the air above states along the Atlantic Coast and the EPA has struggled to devise a way to control it.

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Power companies and several states sued to block the rule from taking effect, and a federal appeals court in Washington agreed with them in 2012.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the court's majority opinion. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.