US Supreme Court Divided On Global Warming
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The global political battle over climate change was also being fought at the US Supreme Court on Wednesday as judges bickered over the role of greenhouse gas emissions in global warming and disagreed on whether the EnvÂÂirÂonÂmental Protection Agency had the power to refuse to regulate such emissions.
Hearing a case that could have a big impact on emission politics in the US Congress and beyond, judges listened to a Bush administration official defend the notion that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should stay out of greenhouse gas regulation. They also heard from the state of Massachusetts, which insists that its coastline will be threatened unless the EPA steps in.
Environmental activists, frustrated by the failure of Congress or the Bush administration to act on global warming, brought the issue to the Supreme Court with the case Massachusetts v EPA. The court heard oral arguments in the case yesterday but will rule only sometime next year.
Massachusetts brought the suit, backed by California, New York and several other states, to try to force the EPA to regulate exhaust emissions from new cars. The EPA says it does not have the authority to regulate such emissions, under federal law. Even if it did, the EPA says, it would refuse to do so because of continuing uncertainty in the science of global warming and because unilateral US action could reduce America’s bargaining power in international negotiations on reducing emissions.
A federal appeals court issued a splintered ruling in the case, with the two judges in the majority – who upheld the EPA’s refusal to regulate – disagreeing on their reasoning. One found that Massachusetts had no right to bring the lawsuit, and the other found that the EPA had the authority to refuse to regulate.
Wednesday’s arguments focused largely on the issue of whether Massachusetts could bring the case in the first place, with several conservative justices arguing that Massachusetts had not proved the danger to its coastline was imminent enough to merit the suit, or that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved by limiting exhaust emissions – some 2.5 per cent of total US greenhouse emissions – would be significant enough to give them the right to sue.
“It depends what happens across the globe,†Chief Justice John Roberts said, noting that any reduction in US emissions might be overcome by a rise in emissions caused by China’s rapid economic development. Several liberal justices supported Massachusetts but the pivotal swing justice, Anthony Kennedy, did not reveal where he stood.
The court appeared similarly divided on the issue of whether the EPA had the authority to refuse to regulate or whether its reasons for doing so were valid.