In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: A legal precedent and the text of the ruling
Background: The EPA's 2003 refusal to regulate
Reactions: Legal implications, industry responses, and Bush's response
Opinions: What does the ruling mean?
Reference Material: The greenhouse effect, air quality nationwide, and the Clean Air Act
Related Topics: California's lawsuit, UK emissions rise, and the socio-economics of global warming
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Supreme Court Tells EPA to Regulate Greenhouse Gases
by
findingDulcinea Staff
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate automobile greenhouse gas emissions, potentially giving states the right to sue the agency if it fails to act.
30-Second Summary
The United States is the world’s largest emitter of carbon emissions, but according to the Supreme Court the Environmental Protection Agency has the legal power to change that.
In a 5–4 vote, the Court ruled that the EPA’s authority allows them to cap greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. The EPA has shunned such responsibility in the past, refusing in 2003 to manage Massachusetts’s car emissions by arguing that the Clean Air Act did not give it the authority to do so.
The Court’s decision refutes the EPA’s prior argument by classifying greenhouse gases as “air pollutants” that could endanger “public health or welfare,” making their regulation the EPA’s responsibility under the Clean Air Act.
States will now be able to get federal approval for their automobile emissions caps, a process that has heretofore prevented California and a number of other states from enforcing their regulations. In addition, the ruling will allow states to sue the EPA if they feel the agency is not exerting enough regulatory power.
The decision comes at a pivotal time, as nations around the world examine the effects of higher temperatures on the environment.
In a 5–4 vote, the Court ruled that the EPA’s authority allows them to cap greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. The EPA has shunned such responsibility in the past, refusing in 2003 to manage Massachusetts’s car emissions by arguing that the Clean Air Act did not give it the authority to do so.
The Court’s decision refutes the EPA’s prior argument by classifying greenhouse gases as “air pollutants” that could endanger “public health or welfare,” making their regulation the EPA’s responsibility under the Clean Air Act.
States will now be able to get federal approval for their automobile emissions caps, a process that has heretofore prevented California and a number of other states from enforcing their regulations. In addition, the ruling will allow states to sue the EPA if they feel the agency is not exerting enough regulatory power.
The decision comes at a pivotal time, as nations around the world examine the effects of higher temperatures on the environment.
Headline Links: A legal precedent and the text of the ruling
The Supreme Court’s ruling that the EPA has the power to regulate greenhouse gases is the first legal precedent connecting automobile emissions and global warming, a connection that could lead lawmakers to create the nation’s first-ever carbon caps.
Source: Reuters
According to the full text of the ruling, the EPA’s 2003 refusal was “arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law.” As one of the four dissenting votes, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the “court has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency.”
Source: FindLaw.com
Background: The EPA's 2003 refusal to regulate
In August of 2003, the EPA denied a petition requesting that it regulate carbon emissions from automobiles. The EPA argued that it was not authorized to create such regulations by the Clean Air Act, and that “setting GHG emission standards for motor vehicles is not appropriate at this time.”
Source: EPA Web site
Reactions: Legal implications, industry responses, and Bush's response
The New York Times analyzes the Court’s decision, focusing less on its environmental impact and more on its legal effects. Not only has the decision expanded states’ access to the federal courts, but Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissenting opinion has revealed his “deepest jurisprudential beliefs and highest priorities.”
Source: The New York Times
In making its ruling the Supreme Court rejected the EPA’s argument that the Clean Air Act didn’t grant them the authority to regulate carbon emissions. The rejection undermines a number of legal cases using the same argument, including a case in California in which auto industry groups are fighting the state’s carbon dioxide emissions caps.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
Justin Pidot of the environmental news blog Gristmill writes that the most significant effect of the Supreme Court's decision may be that states will have an easier time legally challenging the EPA over global warming issues. Pidot writes that "standing [the legal term for the ability to bring a lawsuit to court] has been a perennial challenge for environmentalists trying to get into court. If the court had decided this question differently, it's hard to imagine that anyone would ever have had standing to bring a suit based on global warming."
Source: Gristmill
The response from different industries has been mixed, highlighting the uncertainty over how the ruling will affect national policy. Although the decision relates only to automobile emissions, by placing carbon dioxide under the rubric of pollutants that the federal government has the authority to regulate, the ruling has the potential to affect utilities, oil producers, airlines and other industries.
Source: The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers reacted to the ruling positively, saying that its members “[look] forward to working constructively with both Congress and the administration … in developing a national approach [to greenhouse gas emissions].”
Source: The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers Web site
In a press conference, President Bush said that his administration is still examining the ruling, moving on to highlight the actions already taken by his administration: "My attitude is that we have laid out a plan that will affect greenhouse gases that come from automobiles by having a mandatory fuel standard that insists on ... using 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels by 2017.”
Source: MarketWatch
Opinions: What does the ruling mean?
Mark Moller on the Cato Institute's blog doubts how far-reaching the implications of the Supreme Court's decision really are: "if you read between the lines of the majority’s decision, its not clear that it will alter EPA policy one jot or tittle ... Even assuming that, after the Court’s decision yesterday, the EPA has to “regulate” in the sense of promulgating some GHG emission standards, the Court’s decision leaves the EPA with ample room to argue that it can defer deciding when and how to implement those standards in light of the potentially high and uncertain costs of implementation."
Source: The Cato Institute's official blog
The Wall Street Journal thinks that the Supreme Court's decision strays too far from the rule of law: "the Justices would have done better in their big global warming decision if they'd stuck more closely to the law. They showed no such modesty ... a narrow majority managed to diminish the rules of judicial standing, rewrite the definition of "pollutant" under the Clean Air Act, and dramatically curtail the decision-making authority of the executive branch. And judging from Justice John Paul Stevens's 5-4 majority decision, they did so because the five Justices are personally anxious about rising temperatures."
Source: The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Henry Payne, writing for the National Review's Planet Gore blog, thinks that environmentalists are being unrealistic about the ramifications of the Supreme Court's ruling : "I am struck by the absurdity of where such regulation is supposed to lead us. Listen to lefty Josh Dorner of the Sierra Club today, one of the 'victors' in this suit. The ruling, he says, 'sends a clear signal to the market that the future lies not in dirty, outdated technology of yesterday, but in clean energy solutions of tomorrow like wind, solar.' That statement is flat out fantasy."
Source: The National Review Online
The San Francisco Chronicle applauds the Supreme Court’s decision, writing that its effects "should be sweeping, with real–world steps to tamp down smokestack plumes from coal–burning power plants and, most importantly for California, tailpipe emissions ... [the] ruling not only kicks federal rule-makers to take greenhouse-gas pollution seriously, but it also breaks the logjam over state initiatives to lower vehicle pollution. "
Source: The San Francisco Chronicle
The New York Times writes that the Court’s decision will be a great boon to the 12 states currently seeking federal approval for caps on automobile emissions: "California and nearly a dozen other states have adopted their own regulations requiring lower greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. These rules, however, require federal approval, which seemed unlikely as long as the agency could claim that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant — a claim it can no longer make."
Source: The New York Times
Reference Material: The greenhouse effect, air quality nationwide, and the Clean Air Act
The Greenhouse Effect refers to the warming of the world’s climate due to man-made greenhouse gases. Although these gases are found throughout nature, their overabundance due to man-made emissions is increasing the Earth’s surface temperature.
Source: The BBC
The EPA’s air quality Web site Air Now has updates on air quality conditions around the country, including maps, news updates, and a link to their interactive Web site for students.
Source: AirNow.gov
The United States is the world’s leading producer of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, followed by China, Russia, India, and Japan.
Source: infoplease.com
The EPA’s Web site offers The Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act, a helpful guide to the implications and necessities of the Clean Air Act passed in 1990.
Source: The EPA Web site
The EPA also offers the full text of the Clean Air Act, complete with 1990 amendments and legislative analyses.
Source: The EPA Web site
Related Topics: California's lawsuit, UK emissions rise, and the socio-economics of global warming
The state of California is currently involved in two lawsuits with the auto industry involving carbon emissions: State Attorney General Jerry Brown is suing six major car manufacturers because of their vehicles’ emissions; automakers are suing to overturn the state’s vehicle emissions cap.
Source: The San Francisco Chronicle
The United Kingdom’s carbon emissions have risen for the third straight year, and as a result the British government has announced that it is unlikely to meet its 2010 target for lowering CO2 emissions
Source: The BBC
According to Yale economist Robert O. Mendelsohn, geography and economics have a lot more to do with global warming than most people like to believe. Medelsohn says that the people most vulnerable to climate change are also the world’s poorest. In addition, the large industrialized countries are mostly located at mid-latitude, an area of the planet with comparatively mild climates.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
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