Today, EPA made its long-expected official finding: climate change is real, and we human beings are the cause.
More than two years after the Supreme Court ordered EPA to address the issue, EPA has now formally ruled that greenhouse gases cause climate change that endangers human health or welfare. EPA also found that motor vehicles contribute significantly to levels of greenhouse gases. These findings trigger regulation under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles. Similar findings are likely in the near future under a different section of the statute relating to stationary sources such as factories.
This development has been inevitable since the Supreme Court ruled that EPA must make a decision based solely on the scientific evidence. Despite all the recent brouhaha about hacked emails, the scientific evidence on climate change is just as solid as the evidence behind DNA identification, the ill effects of cholesterol, the dangers of smoking cigarettes, and a host of other scientific knowledge that we all take for granted. If there were any tenable scientific evidence going the other way, the Bush Administration would have made its own findings in order to block regulation. They knew they couldn’t do that, so they just stalled as long as possible and ran out the clock.
No doubt there will be efforts to challenge the EPA finding in court. But the scientific evidence is overwhelming. In addition, the Supreme Court itself found enough evidence of harm from climate change to create standing for the state of Massachusetts in the original ruling that lead to today’s action. It would take a very bold lower court judge to even think about ruling the other way.
Nobody thinks that the Clean Air Act is the ideal way to address climate change. It would be much better for the Senate to join the House to pass new legislation. I hope that will happen soon. But let’s face it, the Senate has too often become the place where public policy goes to die. Congressional deadlock creates a vacuum that other actors – the Executive Branch, the courts, and state governments – rush to fill.
In short, at this point, it is no longer a question whether federal law restricts carbon emissions. The only question is which federal law: the Clean Air Act or new legislation aimed specifically at climate change.
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Daniel Farber | December 7, 2009
Today, EPA made its long-expected official finding: climate change is real, and we human beings are the cause. More than two years after the Supreme Court ordered EPA to address the issue, EPA has now formally ruled that greenhouse gases cause climate change that endangers human health or welfare. EPA also found that motor vehicles […]
Victor Flatt | December 7, 2009
Today, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opens in Copenhagen. I will be a credentialed observer from non-governmental academic and research organizations including the Center for Progressive Reform and the Center for Law, Environment, Adaptation, and Resources (CLEAR) at the University of North Carolina […]
Ben Somberg | December 4, 2009
CPR Member Scholars Victor Flatt and David Hunter, along with several guest contributors, will be writing for CPRBlog from the climate talks in Copenhagen. Stay tuned.
Frank Ackerman | December 4, 2009
Once upon a time, EPA and other agencies labored under the yoke of a cruel regime that was contemptuous of the “reality-based community,” but intimately aware of the needs and desires of the energy industry. Climate policy didn’t really happen in those days. Then the world changed. In the first year of the new regime, […]
Rena Steinzor | December 3, 2009
As reporters dug deeper on our post yesterday about the return of Randy Lutter, chief economist at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the George W. Bush Administration, to “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein’s office, OMB spokesman Tom Gavin worked to downplay the significance of Lutter’s reappearance. Gavin confirmed that Lutter was in fact ensconced […]
Rena Steinzor | December 2, 2009
For a number of days now, we’ve been hearing rumors that Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s “regulatory czar,” was on the verge of hiring conservative economist Randall Lutter to join him at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Few personnel developments could be more discouraging to those hopeful that the Obama Administration will fulfill […]
Holly Doremus | December 2, 2009
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Precisely what the Clean Water Act requires of point sources that discharge to already-polluted waterways has long been a point of confusion. Now, according to Inside EPA, EPA may revise the rules it applies to new permits on impaired waterways. A rulemaking seems far from certain at this point — the […]
Matt Shudtz | December 1, 2009
Yesterday came and went with no announcement from the FDA on the safety of BPA in food packaging. The agency had created a self-imposed November 30 deadline for releasing a new finding, and in the intervening months, a number of new studies on the health effects of BPA have been released and FDA has brought […]
John Echeverria | November 30, 2009
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. By the time they finish hearing from both sides, the justices may wonder whether this case was worth their time and effort. (My amicus brief on the case is here). Petitioner is a small […]