[Vision2020] A Court Rules for the Planet

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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June 27, 2012
A Court Rules for the Planet

A federal court
decision<http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/52AC9DC9471D374685257A290052ACF6/$file/09-1322-1380690.pdf>on
Tuesday upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark
rulings
to control greenhouse gases was a decisive victory for the Obama
administration and a devastating blow to polluters. It vindicated the
administration’s strategy of controlling emissions through regulation and
showed good sense at a time when both the agency and the science of global
warming are under relentless Congressional attack.

The unanimous decision<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/science/earth/epa-emissions-rules-backed-by-court.html>by
a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia covered dozens of suits from industry groups and 14
states challenging four rules that are components of the administration’s
effort to limit greenhouse gases.

The most important of these — the bedrock from which the other rules flowed
— was the agency’s “endangerment finding” in 2009 that carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gas emissions constitute a danger to public health and
could thus be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The judges said the
agency’s reading of its authority had been “unambiguously correct” and that
the agency had based its case on careful research and sound science.

The court upheld three related regulations, including the first round of
clean car and fuel economy standards covering model years 2012-16, issued
by the E.P.A. and the Transportation Department in 2009 and aimed at
significantly reducing greenhouse gases from cars and light trucks while
improving fuel efficiency. It also upheld rules establishing a timetable
for controlling emissions from stationary sources like power plants and
“tailoring” those controls so that only the largest emitters are covered.

President Obama had hoped that Congress would tackle greenhouse gases
through legislation. When that did not happen, the administration had to
use its authority under the clean air laws.

With that power firmly ratified, the E.P.A. can now move ahead with the
second round of clean car standards proposed last year and a final rule on
power plants. Both will be good news for the planet.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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