The Bush administration’s intransigence on global warming got a swift and welcome kick in the tailpipe Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a landmark case, the high court ruled 5-4 that despite the administration’s pleas to the contrary, its Environmental Protection Agency does have the power under the Clean Air Act to regulate motor vehicle emissions that may contribute to global warming. In cars, that’s primarily carbon dioxide.
“I hope this victory does for the environment what Brown v. Board of Education has done for civil rights,” Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), one of Congress’ leading voices for alternative energy said in a release. “If it has similar reach and impact, it could ignite a clean-energy revolution.”
The ruling’s eventual impact might be less earth-shaking than Brown’s, but it clarifies the federal government’s responsibilities in addressing global warming. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens repeatedly alluded to the mounting scientific evidence of the link between global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. If the EPA decides not to regulate such emissions, the court majority said, it must justify it scientifically. Given the overwhelming state of scientific opinion, that’s a high threshold.
The administration recently agreed that human activity is contributing to global warming, yet has steadfastly rejected regulation as a means of lessening that impact, arguing that voluntary measures and technological advances would be enough. That doesn’t even hold water anymore among corporate leaders, many of whom have joined the call for mandated caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
One benefit of Monday’s ruling could be dramatically higher fuel-efficiency standards in new cars and trucks, something that’s long overdue both as an environmental and national security measure. Burning less gasoline means fewer CO2 emissions, and less dependency on foreign oil producers.
More broadly, the court has ruled that the executive branch’s policy objectives can’t stand in the way of protecting the public from harmful emissions. With that cleared up, the EPA should take fair but firm action, working as cooperatively as possible with automakers, to establish meaningful reductions in CO2 emissions.
Washington, which was one of 13 states on the winning side of Monday’s ruling, has been a leader in addressing global warming and climate change, undertaking a series of initiatives to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The federal government shouldn’t be so far behind. Monday’s ruling offers reason to hope it won’t be for much longer.
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