The Environmental Parliament salutes the unanimous decision, of the US Supreme Court that shut down a global warming lawsuit several states and environmental groups had brought against five of America’s biggest utilities, responsible for about one-tenth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Because the case was aimed at getting the court to rule greenhouse gas emissions a public nuisance and order the defendants to reduce them, it was destined to fail. And so the court rightly said: ”Congress has already authorized the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to handle greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”
The Supremes, concluded saying: “We see no room for a parallel track.”
The new decision is another step in the right direction, and it has bolstered the court’s 2007 decision, in which the Supreme court had ruled that not only the EPA has the exclusive authority to regulate Carbon CO2 and all other greenhouse gases as well as traditional pollutants, like smog and particulate matter for the health of the American people — but it has also the exclusive responsibility to act in the interests of the same.
After the new decision, the door is still open for environmental nuisance suits in general, and potentially even for state-level nuisance suits on greenhouse gases, noted Yale law professor Douglas Kysar, but the onus is on the EPA acting. And if the EPA isn’t acting properly on it’s responsibility it is up to the citizens to bring their grievances to the courts…
And, he also pointed out, if Congress strips the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases –as some recent Republican led bills attempted to do – then the nuisance suits on a federal level could return.
The new ruling puts the spotlight squarely on EPA, said Justin Carmichael of the Environmental Parliament, who added that this makes a perfect case for the EPA moving ahead with regulatory plans of all greenhouse gases and CO2 in particular, emitted from big industry and power and utility players.
Recently, the agency has issued new rules on emissions from light-duty vehicles and is moving forward on similar rules for larger vehicles. It is also developing its regulations on power plant emissions, which were scheduled to be published in draft form in late July, but have now been pushed back two months in response to complaints from industry and state governments.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
Dear Lisa,
No more waiting.
Time to regulate
