The Supreme Court has ordered the Bush administration to grow up on global warming. The justices peeled away all the excuses and ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency may indeed regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.
“We questioned whether we did have the authority,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said. “Now the Supreme Court has settled that matter for us.”
No, Dana, you weren’t really questioning your authority. You were evading your responsibility. Your lawyers said you couldn’t, when the truth was you wouldn’t. Your response of, “Gosh, I guess we can,” comes after six-plus years of near-inaction on something that could make large parts of the United States unrecognizable – if not uninhabitable.
This doesn’t mean that the Bush administration will now get with the program on climate change. The president announced that he’s already done quite enough. He has less than two years left, and odds are that he’ll try to run out the clock and leave the problem to his successors.
The significance of the Supreme Court ruling is that it blows a tailwind behind others’ efforts to cope with a growing environmental crisis. It re-energizes the quest in Congress to drag the EPA out of its lethargy. It helps California in its fight with automakers over a state law to restrict future tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. A dozen other states are prepared to follow California’s lead, so this is a very big deal.
Washington, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California are creating a regional plan that would let companies with low emissions sell credits to companies with high ones. And Northeast states are working on a similar idea. The ruling will support all this hard work. It should also embolden the more conservative states in the South and Midwest to address the issue with more vigor.
Most importantly, the decision forces the real grownups to the table. Automakers, the oil companies, the coal industry and other contributors to the problem now see the handwriting and say they want to deal. The last thing they want is a spaghetti bowl of competing state and federal regulations.
Detroit has long battled higher fuel-economy standards. Time to give it up. Vehicles account for over a quarter of the planet-warming gases. Better fuel economy will make U.S. automakers more competitive and help America in a bunch of other ways. Less oil consumption means less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also less smog-producing pollutants and less dependence on Mideast oil.
Still pretending to be in charge, Bush announced that however his administration does react to the ruling, it “must be in concert with what happens internationally.” Pointing fingers at other countries has been one of his favorite excuses for doing little.
It is true that China is rapidly increasing its emissions of greenhouse gases and that we can’t allow our trading partners to walk away from the problem while we sacrifice. But it’s also true that the United States is the biggest producer of these gases on the planet – 25 percent of the total. If we don’t do something about this, why would anyone else?
Furthermore, fortunes will be made finding solutions to global warming. Why not keep some of them in the United States by pushing forward with our own program? That’s a strategy being pursued by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wants California’s program to spur technological innovation locally.
As the states and business speed forward on global warming, the stalled Bush administration looks smaller and smaller in the rearview. What happened? Was it too lazy? Too ignorant? Too childish? Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Froma Harrop is a Providence Journal columnist. Contact her by writing to fharrop@projo.com.
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