Supreme Court Decision Affirms EPA’s Responsibility to Regulate Carbon Dioxide

April 5th, 2007

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision that the matter of regulating carbon dioxide emissions does fall to the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act is an example of how the issue of global warming has gone beyond political parties. According to an article in the Times, the Court, composed largely of conservative justices, was still able to produce a majority in favor of the science behind global warming and the need to do something about it. So it decided in favor of the states that wish greenhouse gasses to be regulated under the Act.

The EPA argued that it does not consider carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses pollutants, and thus doesn’t include them among the chemicals it regulates under the Clean Air Act. The Agency also feels that most greenhouse gas emissions are due to automobiles, and don’t make enough of a contribution to global warming to require regulation.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., along with Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., expressed doubts that the group of states suing the EPA to be allowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions could show that global climate change presented a sufficiently tangible and imminent danger that could be addressed best by regulating emissions from new cars and trucks.

Entry Filed under: Greenhouse Gas Emissions