Posted on 04/02/2008 10:14:33 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
BOSTON - A group of state attorneys general is taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.
The high court decided a year ago that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take action.
But 17 states and others said in a court filing Wednesday that the EPA has not issued a decision on regulation. Their court filing seeks to compel the EPA to act within 60 days.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said the EPA is failing to deal with the dangers of global warming.
An EPA spokesman did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
The plaintiffs in Wednesday's court action include Coakley and attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, plus the city of New York, and the mayor and city council of Baltimore.
The eConut eXpress has left the station, right on time.
Foreign tourists walk past the lotus garden of a resort hotel in the seaside town Hua Hin, on March 19. As climate change guilt among tourists grows, hotels and resorts are finding they have to do more to please the green consumer than simply asking them to re-use their towels. (AFP/File/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)
climate change guilt? 8-|
Polluting, one exhalation at a time.
amazing, huh?
another ‘original sin’ we mortals are burdened with. :-}
I feeel sooo guilty.
Sweepers take to their jobs sweeping a street in Katmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 30, 2006, as clouds of dust and exhaust emissions swirl around them. Developing countries at a U.N. conference said they won't sign a global warming pact unless industrialized nations guarantee them billions of dollars needed to adapt to the impact of climate change. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
This should be an easy win, since Global Warming is a bogus political invention, there is no factual basis for being non-compliant.
You sure big Al wasn’t beamed up to Youranis? I haven’t seen or heard from AL in a long time?
Update for ap piece
BOSTON - Officials of 18 states are taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.
In a petition prepared for filing Wednesday, the plaintiffs said last April’s 5-4 ruling required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles.
The EPA has instead done nothing, they said.
“The EPA’s failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty,” Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.
The petition asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require the EPA to act within 60 days.
In last year’s decision, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA has the authority to regulate emissions from new cars and trucks under the Clean Air Act, and said the reasons the EPA gave for declining to do so were insufficient.
EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the Supreme Court required the agency to evaluate how it would regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and other vehicles but set no deadline.
The EPA plans to include the evaluation in a broader look at how to best regulate all greenhouse gas emissions, not just those from vehicles, he said. Otherwise, a mash of laws and regulations could emerge rather than the “holistic” approach the administration favors.
“We want to set a good foundation to build a strong climate policy of potential regulation and laws we can work toward and actually see some success,” Shradar said.
The plaintiffs in the latest court action include Coakley and attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, plus representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the cities of New York and Baltimore, and several environmental organizations.
From the Christian Science Monitor, April 6, 2007
The Environmental Protection Agency must take action to assess the environmental perils of global warming.
In a major victory for environmentalists, the US Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Bush administration's view that the EPA has discretion to decide when and how to best respond to international environmental threats. The vote was 5 to 4.
Instead, the high court said laws passed by Congress to protect the environment require the EPA to swing into action to assess environmental threats that jeopardize human health and safety.
"Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation," writes Justice John Paul Stevens for the majority. He says the agency had offered no reasonable explanation to avoid the clear instructions of the Clean Air Act.
“Foreign tourists walk past the lotus garden of a resort hotel in the seaside town Hua Hin, on March 19. As climate change guilt among tourists grows, hotels and resorts are finding they have to do more to please the green consumer than simply asking them to re-use their towels. (AFP/File/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)”
SO did these tourists swim to the resort or take an oil-chugging CO2 emitting jumbo jet halfway round the world?!?
So they will spend thousands of dollars and emit all that CO2 to go to a ‘vacation’ where they can feel guilty about global warming ... geez, stay home then!
Nutters!
Yay for the EPA. First time inaction by them has been fully supported!
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