Today the supreme court tackles the issue of global warming, specifically if the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide. 12 states, three cities, 13 environmental groups and a ski resort want the EPA to cap the gas in an effort to help slow global warming. However the Bush administrations EPA says they don’t have the authority to regulate the co2 and even if they did the science isn’t “good enough” to know what to do about it.

At issue is a part of the clean air act that states..

2) In determining priorities for promulgating standards for categories of major stationary sources for the purpose of paragraph (1), the Administrator shall consider –
(A) the quantity of air pollutant emissions which each such category will emit, or will be designed to emit;
(B) the extent to which each such pollutant may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare; and
(C) the mobility and competitive nature of each such category of sources and the consequent need for nationally applicable new source standards of performance.

Section B leads many to assume that co2 is in fact a pollutant and does in fact need to be managed.

Read

This is so foolish. Bush claimed that he wanted to do something about co2 during his campaign run, and as soon as he was elected did a 180 and fled from the issue (perhaps into the hands of the global oil companies?) What is also strange is that the Bush bunch never seems to have any problems doing anything they want. You want an illegal war, lets get er done. You want secret prisons, done and done. You want to tap phones with no warrants, sure! You want to cap c02 a known greenhouse gas, well lets hold up there.

Suddenly this constitution destroying monster has shown himself to be a 90 pound weakling when it comes to global warming.

from here

With one hand, the administration argues that it lacks authority to regulate greenhouse gases through EPA; with the other, it uses NHTSA to insist that it is the only one empowered to act. The result, not accidentally, is paralysis.

Obviously the reason why Bush does not want to regulate co2 is because it would harm the oil gas and car industries. Bush would sell out the health of the planet for the profits of several large companies.

from here.

Concerns about the economic fallout are legitimate, and the pain must be spread fairly among the nations responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. But the costs must be balanced against the potential devastation from rising sea levels, radical changes in weather patterns and the possible loss of productive agricultural areas.

From the NY Times

Calling the case “the most pressing environmental case in decades,” Massachusetts’s attorney general, Thomas F. Reilly, said, “The most indisputable fact in this case is that our climate is changing and that change is being caused by dangerous greenhouse-gas emissions.”

He added, “The federal government’s willing suspension of belief when it comes to global climate change has left it to the states to stand up and force action.”

Most experts agree that the case is most likely to hinge on a technicality and not on the merits of the case itself. If the Court decides with the EPA on this technicality then (ironically) the status quo continues and the courts will have to decide if each states laws are legal one at a time. If the court decided for the EPA on the merits of the EPA case then the laws would almost certainly fail. If the case goes against the EPA the first co2 regulations could go into effect in 2008.

I feel Tom Reilly said it best.

from the boson.com

Global warming “is the most pressing problem of our time,” said Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, who helped initiate the lawsuit in 2003. “This really comes down to what kind of world do we want to leave our children. The EPA is refusing to acknowledge its authority and responsibility.”