Supreme Court Rules EPA Can Regulate

Supreme Court Rules EPA Can Regulate

   
April 2007 - The Bush administration 
failed to follow the requirements of the Clean Air Act when it 
refused to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor 
vehicles, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today. The 5-4 decision 
in Massachusetts v EPA orders the administration to reconsider 
its decision, a move that could result in the first nationwide 
regulations aimed at tackling emissions linked to global 
warming. 
"EPA can no longer hide behind the fiction that it lacks any 
regulatory authority to address the problem of global 
warming," said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. 
"The agency cannot refuse to use its existing authority to 
regulate dangerous substances simply because it disagrees that 
such regulation would be a good idea." 
Although the ruling only forces EPA to reconsider whether it 
should set greenhouse gas emission standards for new cars and 
trucks, Coakley said, it would be difficult for the agency "to 
refuse such regulation once it applies legally permissible 
factors." 
Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed to the bench
 by President 
Gerald Ford in 1975, wrote the majority opinion stating that 
EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
 White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters the 
administration was reviewing the decision, which she said was 
about a legal question, not about policy. 
"Now the Supreme Court has settled that matter for us, and 
we're going to have to take a look and analyze it and see 
where we go from there," Perino said. 
The dispute stretches back to 1999, when environmentalists 
filed a petition calling on EPA to regulate greenhouse gas 
emissions from motor vehicles. 
The Bush administration denied the petition in 2003, claiming 
carbon dioxide is not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and 
that EPA lacked authority under the statute to impose 
regulations. In addition, the administration said that even if 
EPA had such authority, the agency would not set greenhouse 
gas emission standards for new vehicles because of scientific 
uncertainty and conflicts with the administration's policy of 
voluntary programs. 
A dozen states and 13 environmental groups filed suit 
challenging the decision. Ten states and several automobile 
trade groups sided with EPA in the dispute. 
The Supreme Court's review of the case centered on two 
critical issues - whether the states had standing to pursue 
the lawsuit and the scope of EPA's authority under the Clean 
Air Act. 
The majority determined that Massachusetts, the lead 
plaintiff, had standing because sufficient scientific evidence 
shows the state faces harm from rising sea levels caused by 
global warming. 
"The risk of catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless 
real," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
 "That 
risk would be reduced to some extent if petitioners received 
the relief they seek." 
The administration argued against standing, contending that 
Massachusetts was unlikely to get relief from rising sea 
levels if EPA regulated greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. 
motor vehicles because global warming is the result of 
emissions from across the world. 
Passenger cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles account for 
nearly 30 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.
 "Its argument rests on the erroneous assumption that a small 
incremental step, because it is incremental, can never be 
attacked in a federal judicial forum," Stevens wrote.
 "Yet 
accepting that premise would doom most challenges to 
regulatory action. Agencies, like legislatures, do not 
generally resolve massive problems in one fell regulatory 
swoop." 
The majority said it had "little trouble" rejecting the 
administration's argument that the Clean Air Act did not 
provide EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas 
emissions. 
Greenhouse gases are pollutants under the law, Stevens said, 
and EPA's "alternative basis for its decision - that even if 
it has statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gases, it 
would be unwise to do so at this time - rests on reasoning 
divorced from the statutory text." 
The law explicitly states that EPA can avoid regulations only 
if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to 
climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation 
as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to 
determine whether they do, according to the majority. 
EPA has done neither, Steven wrote, and instead "has offered a 
laundry list of reasons not to regulate." 
Those reasons, including existence of voluntary programs to 
address greenhouse gas emissions and foreign policy 
considerations, have nothing to do with the requirements of 
the Clean Air Act, the court said. 
"EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to 
decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate 
change," wrote Stevens, who was joined in the majority with 
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy 
and David Souter. 
The four conservative members of the court dissented, largely 
on grounds of whether the states had standing in the case. 
"The realities make it pure conjecture to suppose that EPA 
regulation of new automobile emissions will likely prevent the 
loss of Massachusetts coastal land," Chief Justice John 
Roberts wrote in his dissent. 
The goals of the plaintiffs "may be more symbolic than 
anything else," Roberts wrote. "The constitutional role of the 
courts, however is to decide concrete cases - not serve as a 
convenient forum for policy debates." 
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote his own dissent, saying the court 
had "no business substituting is own desired outcome for the 
reasoned judgment of the responsible agency." 
Environmentalists hailed the decision as a turning point for 
U.S. global warming policy - the case is the first centered on 
global warming heard by the court. 
"The prospect that EPA will act under today's Clean Air Act 
may light a fire under some industries that have been standing 
in the way," said David Doniger, NRDC's attorney in the case. 
"We've now broken a major legal logjam on this issue, and this 
will be the year that the political logjam is broken, too." 
The decision could also have significant implications on other 
related cases, in particular a lawsuit filed by automakers 
seeking to block a California law that puts limits on 
greenhouse gas emissions from cars. The law, currently subject 
to a temporary injunction, has been adopted by nine other 
states. 
"The Bush administration should immediately give California 
and other states the green light to put their clean cars 
programs into effect," said Amy Figdor of the U.S. Public 
Interest Research Group. "Any delay is completely unjustified 
given today's ruling." 

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