Today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by the Attorney General of Massachusetts (Tom Reilly) as lead plaintiff, together with those of eleven other states (including California and New York), contending that the Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant (because CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas causing global warming). A badly divided panel for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of BushCo's EPA.
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UPDATED -- thanks to The Maven In their petition for certiorari (pdf), the States presented the following questions for review:
1. Whether the EPA Administrator may decline to issue emission standards for motor vehicles based on policy considerations not enumerated in section 202(a)(1).
2. Whether the EPA Administrator has authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other air pollutants associated with climate change under section 202(a)(1)?
The rightwing [Washington Legal Foundation http://www.wlf.org/default.asp] crowed about the defeat of this pro-environment lawsuit at the Circuit Court level:
On July 15, 2005, WLF scored a victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected an effort by several states and environmental groups to require EPA to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. The petitioners had argued that EPA should be required to regulate so-called "greenhouse gases" produced by automobiles, manufacturing facilities, and other sources that the petitioners claimed are causing global warming. The court agreed with WLF that EPA was well within its discretion in not imposing mandatory limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, but the court sidestepped EPA's argument that it lacks statutory authority to impose such limits. WLF argued that Congress would have made its intentions clear if it had really intended the Clean Air Act to require EPA to undertake a massive greenhouse-gas control program.