High Court Ruling Fuels Need For Congress To Act On CO2 Rules, Observers Say
April 02, 2007; Now that the Supreme Court has ruled the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, many observers say the decision will add momentum to demands for congressional climate change legislation and clarify a top-priority issue facing businesses in many sectors.
Businesses have been calling for greater certainty on what the rules will be for controlling GHGs to better guide energy-related investments. With the Supreme Court’s resolution of a key legal issue in Commonwealth of Massachusetts, et al., v. EPA, et al., more businesses could decide to develop climate-related sustainability strategies, says a source with DOMANI, a Denver, CO-based consulting firm.
“This is an important development and another step that is going to raise awareness” about the need for corporate action on climate change, says this source. DOMANI walks clients through the risks and opportunities of climate change, from both a voluntary action and regulatory applicability standpoint, and the specter of regulations is “absolutely a key point” that they advise companies should pay even closer attention to. This ruling just adds to that momentum.
In its 5-4 ruling, the court sided with a coalition of states and environmental groups, finding that they had standing to sue EPA over its refusal to regulate CO2 from automobiles; that CO2 is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act; and that the agency’s stated reasons for not regulating did not satisfy the law.
Members of Congress also commented on the ruling. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI), who has been asking industry and other groups for their ideas on how best to design GHG legislation, said, “While I still believe Congress did not intend for the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases, the Supreme Court has made its decision and the matter is now settled. Today’s ruling provides another compelling reason why Congress must enact, and the President must sign, comprehensive climate change legislation.”
Senate Energy and National Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) responded by reiterating his longstanding calls for the Bush administration to join Congress in developing a national program. “The President no longer has a legal argument that the law prevents him from beginning to address the problem. If he would like to undertake a more comprehensive approach to global warming than just regulating vehicles, then I again urge him to work with Congress to enact a mandatory cap and trade proposal and other programs to reduce our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Bingaman stated.
Observers say the April 2 ruling went much further than many had anticipated, defining climate change as a pressing problem and leaving the agency limited flexibility to determine that it has discretion not to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles, sources familiar with the ruling say.
While the ruling is focused only on emissions from mobile sources, the findings will undoubtedly boost calls from all sides for Congress to step in with an economy-wide approach, many sources note.
Environmentalist Phil Clapp, head of the National Environmental Trust, said in a statement that the ruling “is likely to increase pressure on Congress to act quickly on global warming. Key industries—particularly utilities and automakers—now face the prospect that the next president can impose his or her own global warming emissions reduction under the Clean Air Act if Congress doesn’t write a new law.”
Former EPA General Counsel Ann Klee, who played a role in drafting the administration’s legal arguments in the case, says the ruling puts aside any doubt about whether there will be a national regime for regulating CO2 emissions whether Congress acts or not.
“Today’s decision will dramatically change the regulatory landscape for decades to come, laying the groundwork for far-reaching new air standards based on potential global climate change. . . . With or without congressional action on climate change legislation, today’s decision essentially ensures that industrial emissions of greenhouse gas emissions will be regulated,” Klee said.
Many industry sources and environmentalists say activists and industry groups now will likely turn to Congress—which has recently seriously begun debating global warming policies—because they all prefer that climate change policy not be structured under the existing air act provisions.
“There needs to be a national, economy-wide approach,” an auto industry sources said in response to the decision.
An attorney familiar with the states’ arguments called the ruling “a complete victory. We won on every issue we had and the court even went, in some sense, beyond the discussion in our brief to talk about the problem of climate change in a very detailed way.”
The court’s finding that states have standing in such cases is very important, the attorney said. “As you know, you only need one plaintiff to establish standing, so that principle may apply in other cases. . . .There is no doubt it crystallizes a principle that was not perfectly clear before.” The source adds that the decision is likely to prompt Congress to act more quickly than it would have before.
The ruling also could force EPA to approve California’s request to enact its strict rules regulating CO2 emissions from automobiles, which a slew of other states are also looking to adopt.
One utility industry source says the ruling could actually pose new challenges for proponents of greenhouse gas legislation because it removes the rationale that congressional action is needed due to lack of EPA authority. However, the source also says the ruling could increase pressure on industry to seek a deal from Congress rather than leaving key decisions up to EPA, and that it also further elevates climate change on the political radar.
A source at Calvert, a socially responsible investment firm, also says the decision doesn’t guarantee EPA has to regulate and will not necessarily drive companies to step up commitments to sustainability. “Other things are driving corporate sustainability,” the source adds.
Posted on www.InsideGreenBusiness.com on 04/02 at 05:48 PM