The administration’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, pleaded with the justices to recognize the “urgent problem” of climate change, because the “threat to future generations gets worse” with each passing year.

But as the argument played out, the court’s swing justice, Anthony Kennedy, made clear that he agreed with the conservatives that the administration had gone too far in its carbon-dioxide regulations. Even some of the liberal justices voiced skepticism about the Justice Department’s position.

“I know litigants hate this question,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Verrilli. She asked which of two rationales he would prefer “if you were going to lose.”

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