The US Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked (PDF) the Obama administration's climate change initiative in response to a petition by more than two dozen states and other energy companies suing the Environmental Protection Agency over the carbon-emissions cutting regulations.

The high court's move comes two weeks after a federal appeals court said that the plan, which impacts hundreds of power plants across the nation and is one of the president's centerpiece accomplishments, could proceed even as a legal challenge is pending. That appeals court, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will hear oral arguments June 2 on the carbon plan Obama announced in October.

The justices sided with the states on a 5-4 vote and said the regulations are shelved until the legal wrangling is concluded—which could take years.

The rule requires a 32 percent reduction in power plant emissions by 2030, with the baseline set at 2005 emission levels. Coal-burning power plants, which generate about a third of the nation's power, are the hardest hit. West Virginia and Kentucky, two of the states that rely heavily on coal for power and jobs, initiated the legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan. Utilities are the nation's largest source of carbon emissions.

The states told the high court that if the justices don't block the rules, "the plan will continue to unlawfully impose massive and irreparable harms upon the sovereign states, as well as irreversible changes in the energy markets."