Supreme Court sees the environmentally friendly light!

woohoo!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/02/BAGN7P06F542.DTL&hw=sierra+club&sn=002&sc=902

Supreme Court's EPA decision creates political hot potato

Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Monday, April 2, 2007

(04-02) 16:37 PDT Washington -- The Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling Monday that the
Environmental Protection Agency has the power to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act puts the Bush administration in a quandary.

Either it must start to regulate carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, an action it has resisted for six years. Or the EPA must state publicly that greenhouse gases do not threaten human health or welfare, a view rejected by most climate scientists, including the agency's own researchers.

The administration could drag its heels on a decision, hoping to run out the clock until President Bush leaves office. But lawmakers say the ruling will increase pressure on Congress to pass economy-wide limits on greenhouse gases to avoid a patchwork of state rules and EPA regulations.

The ruling "provides another compelling reason why Congress must enact, and the president must sign, comprehensive climate change legislation," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who is drafting a bill.
The high court's decision will strengthen California's position against legal challenges in federal court from automakers. Legal experts say it also increases the chances the state will get a waiver from the EPA to implement its new tailpipe emissions limits, set to take effect in 2009.

"We remain hopeful that the EPA will soon determine, as California has, that vehicle greenhouse gases must be reduced," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement Monday.

The court was ruling in a case brought by 12 states, including California, one U.S. territory, three cities and 13 environmental groups that sought to force the administration to curb greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.
The states argued that EPA must regulate four greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons -- because the Clean Air Act requires the agency to limit any pollutant that "may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."

But the EPA claimed it didn't have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, and even if it did it wouldn't do so because reducing U.S. vehicle emissions would do little to stem the global rise in greenhouse gases from developing countries like China and India.

The case, Massachusetts vs. EPA, has been widely seen was one of the court's most critical environmental decisions in decades. It split the court between its liberal and conservative wings, with Justice Anthony Kennedy once again providing the swing vote in a narrow decision.

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that EPA was wrong to say it had no authority to regulate greenhouse gases and ordered the agency to reconsider its stance in light of mounting evidence of the perils of global warming.

"EPA has refused to comply with this clear statutory command. Instead, it has offered a laundry list of reasons not to regulate," Stevens wrote. He later added, "While the president has broad authority in foreign affairs, that authority does not extend to the refusal to execute domestic laws."

He was joined in the opinion by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter as well as Kennedy.

Stevens also took issue with the administration's claim that curbing auto emissions would only make a small dent in the problem.

"While it may be true that regulating motor-vehicle emissions will not by itself reserve global warming, it by no means follows that we lack jurisdiction to decide wehther EPA has a duty to take steps to slow or reduce it," Stevens wrote.

Former EPA general counsel Ann Klee, who served in the Bush administration until July 2006, said the court's decision will effectively force her former agency to begin regulating tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases, whether it wants to or not.

"It significantly constrains EPA in terms of making a decision not to regulate," said Klee, now a partner at Crowell & Moring in Washington, D.C. "It said EPA can decide not to regulate only if it determines that a pollutant does not contribute to public harm and welfare" -- which would be difficult given the growing scientific consensus about the threats from climate change.

Sierra Club senior attorney David Bookbinder, who's in charge of the environmental group's climate change litigation, said the ruling will require the agency to enforce the Clear Air Act.

"This is everything we wanted," Bookbinder said. "The only thing the court left up to EPA is to make the determination: Do greenhouse gases endanger human health? We all know the answer to that. Even EPA has said that."

Chief Justice John Roberts and three other conservative justices -- Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented, arguing that the states, cities and environmental groups lacked standing to sue the EPA to force regulatory action.
Roberts expressed suspicion about estimates that Massachusetts could lose hundreds of miles of coastal land with projected rises in sea levels.

The states "are never able to trace their alleged injuries back through this complex web to the fractional amount of global emissions that might have been limited with EPA standards," Roberts wrote in dissent.

The decision in the climate case came the same day the Supreme Court ruled against Duke Energy Corp., giving a boost to an EPA program requiring utilities to install cleaner technology when they make upgrades at coal-fired power plants.

The court's unanimous decision was cheered by environmentalists, who say it endorses the Clinton administration's strategy of imposing steep fines on companies that skirt federal clean air rules. The Bush administration, backed by the utilities, has sought to ease those rules.

"This is a banner day for the environment," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "The Supreme Court decided two cases squarely on the side of protecting the environment and public health."

E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.