Supreme Warming

It's Getting Hot in Herre

In case you missed it last week (perhaps you were off buying fireworks to set off over the course of this last week... I know many in my neighborhood seem to have done just that), the Supreme Court has taken up a case pitting the federal government versus several state governments over the question of legislation to regulate CO2 emissions (which are the root cause of global warming). Here's a summary from the WaPo:

The decision to take up Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency -- a lawsuit that pits 12 states, 13 environmental groups, two cities and American Samoa against the federal government -- could break the political impasse that has stymied regulation by the United States on global warming for more than a decade.

Environmentalists and state and local officials argue that President Bush has the legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide under the 36-year-old Clean Air Act because it is linked to climate change and poses a threat to the environment. While the Clinton administration endorsed this reasoning, it did not issue rules on carbon dioxide emissions. The Bush administration, which rejects this theory, must convince the Supreme Court that it has no legal obligation to restrict greenhouse gases.

[...]

The Supreme Court ruling is likely to come next year. Should it rule in favor of the plaintiffs, the opinion would be significant because, beyond forcing the administration's hand, it could have a profound effect on global warming-related lawsuits nationwide. In California, for example, a coalition of automakers is challenging California's decision and that of 10 other states to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks.

The NYTimes editorial from Saturday further focuses the issue:

The case turns largely on a simple reading of the Clean Air Act. The administration argues that the act mentions carbon dioxide only in passing, and that if Congress had been truly worried about global warming it would have given the gases that cause it more emphasis and instructed the E.P.A. to take aggressive steps to control them, as it did with sulfur dioxide and other pollutants. The administration argues further that the science on global warming is too "uncertain" to justify anything more than a voluntary effort to deal with it.

[...]

As for the science that the administration finds so shaky, the plaintiffs will argue that the science has grown steadily more persuasive since the Clean Air Act was last revised in 1990; that the administration has cherry-picked arguments about details while ignoring the vast preponderance of the evidence; and that the consensus among mainstream scientists — a consensus reinforced by a recent National Academy of Sciences report — is that the earth is inexorably heating up and that industrial emissions are largely responsible.

This is a case of global importance, not least because America's failure to act decisively has discouraged the rest of the world from acting decisively. On the face of it, the law plainly gives the government the power to regulate greenhouse gases. A ruling that tells the administration that it has that power does not mean that it will actually use it. But it will no longer be able to hide behind a legal fiction.