Supreme Court Ignites Debate on Global Warming

(orig. posted 5 April 2007)

I was so glad to see the court ruling mentioned below.
The Bush Administration has been so frustrating in their
lack of response to Global Warming. Anyway, the article says it well...

Americans who think that global warming is a serious threat -- and that the Bush administration's deliberate go-slow policy has been indefensible -- were thrilled Monday when the Supreme Court agreed. Whether the divided court's ruling will give them all they hope, though, is open to question.

In its first foray into the global warming debate, the court issued a toughly worded 5-4 ruling that said the administration was simply wrong in arguing that it lacked authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

But the justices stopped short of requiring that the Environmental Protection Agency actually exercise that authority. The EPA must find justification in the Clean Air Act for taking action, or not -- leaving the administration plenty of room to stall.

Instead, it should seize on the ruling to reverse policies that are outdated at best.

Since Bush was first elected, the case for global warming has become so overwhelming that denials now look foolish, as do the administration's well-documented attempts to muzzle government scientists who tried to call attention to the problem.

Frustrated states have begun to act on their own. A major international panel said in February that the warming trend is "unequivocal," that human activity has "very likely" been a chief cause, and that the effects will endure for centuries. Even business and industry have begun to embrace the idea of limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet the EPA provoked Monday's court ruling by mulishly insisting that it couldn't regulate tailpipe emissions.

Neither the EPA nor the White House reacted Monday as if they planned to change course, but that might not last. The high court's ruling set other forces into motion. California and several other states want to set their own greenhouse gas limits on cars and trucks, and the ruling helps their legal argument -- a prospect that worries automakers.

"There needs to be a national, federal, economy-wide approach to addressing greenhouse gases," said the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Maybe the Bush administration will listen more closely to that advice than it has to the scientists.

In its ruling, the court acknowledged the seriousness of global warming, noting that even if the agency can't stop warming completely, it has a duty to try. "Agencies, like legislatures, do not generally resolve massive problems in one fell regulatory swoop ... but instead whittle away at them over time," the court said.

Well put. The Bush administration has long acted as if global warming were not an urgent problem, and sought excuses to avoid taking serious action. Enough. It's time, as the court put it, to start whittling.
original article in Sci-Tech>>
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=011000M7BSKC