Supreme Smackdown!

In what I can only describe as a HUGE decision that will have bearing on any future discussion of US policy regarding global climate change, the US Supreme Court today ruled against the current Administrations position on greenhouse gases and ordered the federal government to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars. While not available for an immediate response to the decision, a very audible DOH! was heard emanating from the Oval Office.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars. No big surprise, the court's four conservative justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented.

The court addressed three questions:

Do states and environmental groups have standing to sue EPA?
Verdict: Yes.
(To show legal standing, states had to show they would be harmed by the excess global warming that would occur without EPA regulations. This was the real sticking point, and it was at the center of the conservative justices' dissent.)

Does the EPA have the right to regulate CO2 emissions as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act?
Verdict: Yes.

Can the EPA choose not to regulate CO2 emissions at its own discretion?
Verdict: The court told EPA to ...reconsider its claim that it has that discretion. Said majority opinion writer Justice John Paul Stevens: EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change. Adding a wee bit of insult to injury, he points out that not only has the EPA refused to do so, but instead has provided:

a laundry list of reasons not to regulate, including the existence of voluntary Executive Branch programs providing a response to global warming and impairment of the President's ability to negotiate with developing nations to reduce emissions.

Already, this decision is being discussed in the blogosphere and elsewhere as both a blessing and omen at the same time. A blessing because now the EPA will have to release reports and recommendations on CO2 emissions. This will keep pressure on the Administration to show that it is in some way addressing the issue. An omen because, as demonstrated before, this Administration prides itself at ignoring empirical data, spinning alternative versions of empirical data, and engineering contradictory misinformation campaigns to confuse the public.

The administration's spin doctors notwithstanding, this is a landmark decision that provides an awful lot of impetus for any future administration, Republican or Democrat, to get CO2 regulation on track.