Ruling 5-4, the Supreme Court on Monday found that the federal government had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases that may contribute to global warming, and must examine anew the scientific evidence of a link between those gases contained in the exhausts of new cars and trucks and climate change. In the most important environmental ruling in years, the Court rebuffed the Environmental Protection Agency's claim that regulating those gases was beyond its authority, and the agency's claim that it need not take action even if it did have the power to do so. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
That decision came in Massachusetts v. EPA (05-1120). The Court also concluded that the state of Massachusetts had a right to sue to challenge EPA on the climate change issue because it had shown it would be affected directly by global warming.
Environmental Defense lost won a separate case against Duke Energy relating to new source review of power plants. (Fixed an error on my part.)
That is small potatoes compared to the finding that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gases (PDF link), and that states may sue to compel such regulations.
I had suspected the Court would dismiss the case on procedural grounds, holding that Massachusetts didn't have grounds to sue, and duck the broader issues. The Court did not rule on whether the EPA must regulate carbon dioxide, nor on how it ought to regulate it if the EPA chooses to do so. The Court did hold that the reasons the EPA offered for refusing to regulate carbon dioxide were not adequate because they do not "amount to a reasoned justification for declining to form a scientific judgment." That is the standard set by the law, and the EPA failed to adhere to the standard. In particular, I'm intrigued that the Court continued it's decision by writing:
Nor can EPA avoid its statutory obligation by noting the uncertainty surrounding various features of climate change and concluding that it would therefore be better not to regulate at this time. If the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it precludes EPA from making a reasoned judgment as to whether greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, EPA must say so.
That would be a difficult threshold to cross, given the overwhelming confidence of the scientific community that the link exists and has little doubt surrounding it.
The ruling also establishes a principled distinction between scientific evaluation and policymaking. Dr. Pielke may object to the idea of such a bright line, but it's nice to see the Court attempting to draw it. The majority ruled that the agency could not refuse to regulate carbon dioxide simply because of policy objections, or because of unrelated actions being taken (or not taken) by other parts of the government. Congress made a policy choice in passing the Clean Air Act, and it isn't the place of the EPA to substitute its judgment for Congress's overarching statutory scheme.
When the case was heard, the consensus of green bloggers was that nothing would actually happen on this front until 2009, when a new President and a new EPA administrator take office. That's probably still true. This allows the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide and automobile emissions, but does not mandate it. This EPA and this White House have little interest in such regulations, and can easily tie this up in the courts until the next Inaugural.
This also does not change my assessment from last November, that it would be better for Congress to pass a law specifically targeted at global warming. Automobile emissions are a major part of this country's contribution to our changing climate, but a truly comprehensive plan is needed. Requiring catalytic converters and phasing out leaded gas was one thing, the EPA could not ban internal combustion engines or gasoline entirely.
Making an environmentally and economically sustainable future will require careful balancing of interests and policies. The discussions and debates and compromises involved belong in the legislative branch. The EPA and the Clean Air Act will play a role in the final outcome, and this gives a chance at a head start. This does not remove the need for Congress to act, it merely strengthens the hand of lawmakers; it clarifies that their decisions regarding broad policy may not be overturned by a hostile administration under cover of vague and ill-defined policy objections.
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You need to convey to the EPA that The Bible has the solution to the Greenhouse Gas problems. There are no other answers that mean anything except The Word of God.
Look at the data, not the hype. Politics of fear is trying to scare the public into throwing billions of dollars to do things that will have no effect on this natural cycle of global warming AND cooling.
The neocon administration is beholden to the money powers that bought them, the big corporations. So they put lifeless entities such as big corporations before the living, breathing, humans that built the societies of the world.
Bob, this isn't a natural cycle. Natural processes alone cannot explain the warming we've seen.
Carbon dioxide released by man near ground level is heavier than air and sinks in air rather than rising up to the upper atmosphere to become a so-called greenhouse gas. While sinking, it stratifies from air. After sinking and stratifying, it tends to remain close to the ground and may find its way down to low-lying water bodies or down to ocean level where it can mix and react with water to form weak carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide is also removed from the lower atmosphere by rainfall.
What a great victory for the environment!
This should add momentum in the fight against global warming. We know what we need to do and now it's time for Congress to act.
Also - Environmental Defense didn't lose the Duke Energy case. Quite the contrary - we won.
Lisa Moore
Environmental Defense
www.climate411.org
I am a geologist and member of the AGU. I'd like to take a moment to point something out. Carbon dioxide has a very long atmospheric lifetime. If we were to stop all production of it right now, it would take a century for any real effect on global warming to appear. We should certainly reduce the emissions, but we need to do something that helps us now.
I propose we concentrate on methane instead. Methane is less plentiful as a greenhouse gas, but it has a strong impact on warming and it only has a 12 year lifetime. Thus, reducing emissions would show results in only a few years. Here's my plan:
There are huge offshore deposits of methane hydrate around the US. Those deposits leak! They constantly put methane into the atmosphere, and they have been known to catastrophically blow off millions of cubic feet of gas. It's possible to contain that and capture the methane. By doing so, we would reduce the concentration of methane as a greenhouse gas, obtain a supply of "clean" fuel that would reduce the other greenhouse emissions across the board, and do it all without sacrificing our lifestyle.
This would be expensive to implement, but the oil companies would probably be willing to put money into it because natural gas is within their scope of operations. With some government backing, it could be made to work.
I say, let's indeed do something about global warming. But let's do something that actually works. Prodding the EPA to mandate cleaner cars is not going to solve the immediate crisis. Let's put some good old engineering into the equation!
David -
Simple exersize for you - calculate the Stokes settling velocity of a molecule of CO2, and compare this with average wind speeds (and indeed, average thermal speeds of air molecules). Put them up in a post here. This will show you why you are wrong.
PinkFud -
If you were a geologist, you'd know that that the very existance of these deposits - at least on the scale usually claimed - is questionable, since the BSR was shown not to indicate them and the only known deposits are natural gas field related. Total losses from these deposits are small compared with anthropogenic emissions - this being trivially demonstrated by comparing pre- and post- anthropogenic methane concentrations.
Actually obtaining methane from such deposits - given that even solid hydrates are low-concentration compared with conventional fields, is an extreme technical challenge if possible at all. Oil companies have already tried, and failed.
You scientists and your theories about "wind." What will you think of next?
I think the more compelling argument against Pinkfud is that, whatever we do, we have to control CO2 emissions. Methane is indeed a more potent greenhouse gas, but the net effect of our carbon dioxide emissions is greater. You can't keep the ship from sinking by plugging the little hole and leaving the big ones.
I suppose you could just quote FreeRepublic.com from here to eternity about any number of subjects posted here. But I couldn't resist:
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I see that the communist cockroach Stevens joined the other Marxists in this decision.
I recall Stevens saying that we need to rethink the idea of individual property rights.
I also heard that Stevens called CO2 a pollutant.
This will give the federal fascist bureaucrats another tool to destroy private property.
I also recall that when congress created the EPA, one congresscritter said the agency would destroy private property in America.
It looks like Stevens has completed his transformation into a Stalinist. I bet his New York Times minder brings him a hooker, a signed photo of Lenin and a warm glass of milk tonight.
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I LOVE that place!!!
(How do you make quote blocks here, anyway?)