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Global Warming in the Supreme Court
Friday, September 29, 2006
From David Bookbinder:
To my surprise, last June 26th the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Massachusetts v. EPA and look at whether the Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. We did not expect the Court to take this case, and had written the petition more as an exercise in educating the Court about this issue. We wanted to give the Court a heads-up that they would be hearing more about the issue as other cases presenting this question of EPA's authority over greenhouse gases percolated up through the courts. In fact, it was precisely because these other cases are in the pipeline that we expected the Justices to wait and review one of those decisions, as they generally prefer to have a sample of lower court opinions chewing things over before they get involved.
Every reporter who called me in late June began with the same question: "So, what does this mean?" Given that our opening brief was due August 31, my response was "It means that my summer is completely screwed." My vacation plans aside, our best guess is that the Justices recognized the mega-policy issues involved here, and at least four of them (the number needed to take a case) decided they had better deal with this sooner rather than later.
On the one side, Sierra Club and ten other environmental organizations, 12 states and a couple of cities, plus a host of amici - "friends of the court". On the other side, the Bush Administration, 10 other states, and every major industrial and business interest in the country. (They have so many trade associations, such as the American Petroleum Association, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc., that they appeared in this case under the umbrella title of "The CO2 Litigation Group." Because they certainly deserved a more descriptive name, the winner of a bottle of fine single-malt in my re-branding contest was "The Flat Earth Gang.")
I'll keep y'all posted as this progresses.
posted by Pat Gallagher
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Greetings, I am curious if any of the Massachusetts, et. al. arguments looked at the fact that EPA defines ozone, radon, asbestos, mercury lead, sulfur dioxide, and methane as pollutants. Are these not all naturally occurring elements or gases, as is carbon dioxide?
The NASA definition of pollutant --- "Strictly, too much of any substance in the wrong place or at the wrong time is a pollutant. More specifically, atmospheric pollution may be defined as the presence of substances in the atmosphere, resulting from man-made activities or from natural processes that cause adverse effects to human health, property, and the environment."
Does this NASA definition of "any substance" hold any weight with the federal government? Afterall, NASA is the federal government.
The EPA's own definition of pollutant would seem to offer plenty of room for carbon dioxide. Here it is: "Pollutants (pollution) -- unwanted chemicals or other materials found in the air. Pollutants can harm health, the environment and property. Many air pollutants occur as gases or vapors, but some are very tiny solid particles: dust, smoke or soot."
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