[Vision2020] US Supreme Court rebukes Bush on climate change

[Ted Moffett]

Mark et. al.

Thanks for this update.  I had been following this SCOTUS case, a very
important potentially landmark court case in environmental law.

Human CO2 emissions are often argued to not be "pollution."  After all, we
breath out CO2 with every breath, and plants grow using CO2.  And the global
warming "debate" is still with us, so classifying human CO2 releases as a
"pollutant" solely on the basis of warming the climate might be a hard
sell.  But some scientists insist that CO2 increases in the atmosphere are
alerting the chemistry of the oceans in a manner negatively impacting
organisms, so in this sense dramatic CO2 atmospheric increases from human
activity are actually chemically "polluting" the oceans:

Here is a different law suit (or "petition," they call it), based on the
Clean Water Act and human emissions of CO2 altering the oceans:

"Ocean acidification is as grave a threat to the health of our planet as
global warming," said Miyoko Sakashita, a staff attorney with the Center for
Biological Diversity who specializes in ocean issues. "Fortunately, the
Clean Water Act provides the tools to regulate carbon dioxide pollution,
which will help address not only ocean acidification but also global
warming."
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/PRESS/ocean-acidification-02-28-2007.html
-----------

More on CO2 altering ocean chemistry:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6164

----------------
Ted Moffett

On 4/2/07, Mark Solomon <msolomon at moscow.com> wrote:
>
>  The Court just ruled that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that can be
> regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. (Article below).
>
>
> An interesting side note is that Idaho is one of the states that
> intervened to support EPA's contention that the agency couldn't do anything
> about greenhouse gases. Your hard earned Idaho tax dollars at work. It's
> time to eliminate the legal slush fund established by the legislature to
> legally pursue "constitutional issues".
>
>
>
>
> m.
>
>
> April 2, 2007
> Court Rebukes Administration in Global Warming Case
> By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on
> Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from
> cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.
>
> In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the
> Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of
> carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.
>
> Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law,
> Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.
>
> The court's four conservative justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and
> Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented.
>
> Many scientists believe greenhouse gases, flowing into the atmosphere at
> an unprecedented rate, are leading to a warming of the Earth, rising sea
> levels and other marked ecological changes.
>
> The politics of global warming have changed dramatically since the court
> agreed last year to hear its first global warming case.
>
> "In many ways, the debate has moved beyond this," said Chris Miller,
> director of the global warming campaign for Greenpeace, one of the
> environmental groups that sued the EPA. "All the front-runners in the 2008
> presidential campaign, both Democrats and Republicans, even the business
> community, are much further along on this than the Bush administration is."
>
> Democrats took control of Congress last November. The world's leading
> climate scientists reported in February that global warming is "very likely"
> caused by man and is so severe that it will "continue for centuries." Former
> Vice President Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth -- making the case for
> quick action on climate change -- won an Oscar. Business leaders are saying
> they are increasingly open to congressional action to reduce greenhouse
> gases emissions, of which carbon dioxide is the largest.
>
> Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas
> are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient
> cars.
>
> The court had three questions before it.
>
> --Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
>
> --Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe
> emissions of greenhouse gases?
>
> --Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?
>
> The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered
> EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate
> tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a "laundry
> list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.
>
> The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the
> Clean Air Act.
>
> "EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether
> greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Stevens said. He
> was joined by his liberal colleagues, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader
> Ginsburg and David Souter, and the court's swing voter, Justice Anthony
> Kennedy.
>
> The lawsuit was filed by 12 states and 13 environmental groups that had
> grown frustrated by the Bush administration's inaction on global warming.
>
> In his dissent, Roberts focused on the issue of standing, whether a party
> has the right to file a lawsuit.
>
> The court should simply recognize that redress of the kind of grievances
> spelled out by the state of Massachusetts is the function of Congress and
> the chief executive, not the federal courts, Roberts said.
>
> His position "involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what
> causes it, or the extent of the problem," he said.
>
> The decision also is expected to boost California's prospects for gaining
> EPA approval of its own program to limit tailpipe emissions of greenhouse
> gases. Federal law considers the state a laboratory on environmental issues
> and gives California the right to seek approval of standards that are
> stricter than national norms.
> The case is Massachusetts v. EPA, 05-1120.
>
>
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