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<DIV class=timestamp>November 28, 2006</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker><NYT_KICKER>Editorial</NYT_KICKER></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">Global Warming Goes to Court
</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE type=" "
version="1.0"></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT></NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P>The Bush administration has been on a six-year campaign to expand its powers,
often beyond what the Constitution allows. So it is odd to hear it claim that it
lacks the power to slow global warming by limiting the emission of harmful
gases. But that is just what it will argue to the Supreme Court tomorrow, in
what may be the most important environmental case in many years. </P>
<P>A group of 12 states, including New York and Massachusetts, is suing the
Environmental Protection Agency for failing to properly do its job. These
states, backed by environmental groups and scientists, say that the Clean Air
Act requires the E.P.A. to impose limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases emitted by new cars. These gases are a major contributor to the
“greenhouse effect” that is dangerously heating up the planet.</P>
<P>The Bush administration insists that the E.P.A. does not have the power to
limit these gases. It argues that they are not “air pollutants” under the Clean
Air Act. Alternatively, it contends that the court should dismiss the case
because the states do not have “standing,” since they cannot show that they will
be specifically harmed by the agency’s failure to regulate greenhouse gases.</P>
<P>A plain reading of the Clean Air Act shows that the states are right. The act
says that the E.P.A. “shall” set standards for “any air pollutant” that in its
judgment causes or contributes to air pollution that “may reasonably be
anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The word “welfare,” the law
says, includes “climate” and “weather.” The E.P.A. makes an array of specious
arguments about why the act does not mean what it expressly says. But it has no
right to refuse to do what Congress said it “shall” do.</P>
<P>Beneath the statutory and standing questions, this is a case about how
seriously the government takes global warming. The E.P.A.’s decision was based
in part on its poorly reasoned conclusion that there was too much “scientific
uncertainty” about global warming to worry about it. The government’s claim that
the states lack standing also scoffs at global warming, by failing to
acknowledge that the states have a strong interest in protecting their land and
citizens against coastal flooding and the other kinds of damage that are being
projected.</P>
<P>In a friend-of-the-court brief, climate scientists from the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, Stanford University and other respected
institutions warn that “the scientific evidence of the risks, long time lags and
irreversibility of climate change argue persuasively for prompt regulatory
action.” The Supreme Court can strike an important blow in defense of the planet
simply by ruling that the E.P.A. must start following the
law.</P></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>