yossarian wrote:
The EPA was literally not commenting on global warming. It wasn't saying global warming doesn't exist, simply that it is beyond the current laws. In my understanding, this is straightforward: the laws under which the EPA operate do quite clearly state they have the ability to regulate it.
And therefore they should at least look into it and determine whether or not it is a risk.
Which is all they have to do now.
My understanding of the minority opinion is that, quite simply, if the EPA doesn't want to enforce the law - on anything - for any reason, the court is no place to get it done. Considering the glacial time scale of cases in the law, I'm sure we would have arrived at the same result sooner via elections. Although this is the so called "conservative" wing of the court, following their advice would reveal more of the true nature of the Republican party to the people and ensure Democrat control of government.
Well. The first three paragraphs were right on the money...
But then you went off on some political motivation as to why the court should have made a different decision. How about "This decision is wrong because it's the wrong legal decision", not "Gee... They might have sent a better political message if they'd let the Republicans hang themselves on the environment". It's not the Supreme Court's job to make decisions based on how they'll be percieved and how that perception will affect politics. Regardless of which "way" you think they should have ruled on this.
This ruling was a horrible one for several reasons. It's another example of the left side of our political spectrum using a publically popular "cause of the moment" to further erode separation of powers. Legally, it stretches the boundaries of what constitutes "harm" legally and who can bring a suit. Normally, the test for a State (Mass in this case) acting on behalf of the "common good" is a higher one then that for an individual or group of private citizens acting on their own behalf. That was reversed in this case, allowing a state to bring a suit in which the test for harm was so vague it effectively removes any requirement at all. In fact, the argument was that this was ok *because* it was a state bringing the suit rather then ordinary people.
While many of you might rejoice at the apparently good result in the particular case at hand, in typical fashion the left has once again used that smokescreen to slip in a precedent that empowers the state over the people. Which seems great as long as the state is bringing suits over things like environmental harm. But the same precedent can be used to allow the state to bring "common cause" suits in situations that are not so benevolent seeming (I'm seeing shades of Kelo v. New London again in this one). We should all be concerned at a court that apparently places a "common cause" case brought by the state (or "A" state as in this case) above an individual or group claim of damage. Because that's *exactly* the thinking that allows rulings that place the needs of the state (when acting for "the people" of course!) over those of individuals.
And beyond the horrible precedent it was just a plain poor ruling. Read the dissent. It's pretty strong. At it's most fundamental (and I'll go even a bit beyond that written in the dissent), the court took an incredibly liberal definition of "pollutant" from the EPA and then required that the EPA follow that definition and take specific action as a result. Note, that it's not that the EPA hasn't recognized global warming. It's the specific actions that should be taken that are debated and to which the EPA still wants to see more evidence about.
And that's the truely funny bit. I've been arguing for over a year now, every time the Global Warming issue comes up, that the problem isn't with simply recognizing global warming as a problem, but when we start demanding specific courses of action when those actions *aren't* proven to help (or hurt). And whenever I bring that up, I'm always shusshed by others on this board, that that's not what anyone's trying to do. Hmmm... Well. Here's the result of that political activism folks. We now have a supreme court decision requiring that the EPA take specific and quantifiable action in response to the "global warming threat". Actions which the EPA has held off on doing, not because global warming doesn't exist, but because the benefits of the actions are unknown, while the costs could likely be high.
If you look at the interpretation of the legal language, the Court has based their entire argument upon the assumption that any chemical "in the air" is a pollutant. And as a pollutant, the EPA must take action to reduce any human activity that increases that pollutant. Of course, this is somewhat ludicrous since Carbon Dioxide is a necessary and unavoidable component of all organic respiration and is not so much "in the air" as an integral part of it. By treating it as a pollutant, it's put in the same catagory of toxic substances which should always be reduced.
Even more strangely, they kinda treat it in two different ways and gloss over the inconsistencies at the same time. A pollutant is something that is local to an area and measurable in its level (higher then some baseline for example). So you might measure the levels of some chemical in a stream in one location and another near a factory and conclude that the factory was causing excess levels of that chemical in the stream and require some action be taken. However, the case itself deals with "global warming", and thus "global" CO2 levels. You *can't* look at global levels of anything and point to a particular cause, nor say that one thing must change to "fix" it.
Legally (and logicall) those are completely different things. That's not to say that we should not do something about global CO2 levels. However (and as stated in the dissent), there are many ways to do this that are more "correct". There's nothing preventing Congress from passing laws regulating the emissions of CO2s. That's the right way to do this. Using the court system to force the EPA to use a *very* odd interpretation of their own pollution regulations to make them do it instead is just bizaare.
It smacks of political manipulation. You want to make the change, but don't want your legistlators to be the guys who actually write the law that suddenly increases the cost for vehicals, power, and just about everything else. So you sidestep that and push the issue through the courts. Voilla! Blame the EPA. Avoid writing legistlation for CO2 emissions. Avoid the debate entirely in fact...
If the Dems were truely serious about this, they'd be passing legistlation. Not relying on court decisions to force the EPA to do what they don't want to.
why do you get to decide what a pollutant should be?