ANALYSIS: Divided US high court pushes for global warming action

By Chris Cermak Apr 3, 2007, 0:51 GMT

Washington - The US Supreme Court declared global warming a serious and urgent problem in its first ever ruling on the subject Monday.

The heavily divided court ruled that the federal government has the authority under a 1990 clean air law to cap carbon dioxide and other emissions from vehicles that are blamed for global warming.

But it also said the Environmental Protection Agency is not obligated to control the emissions, although it implied the EPA would have to come up with scientific reasons for not doing so.

In the end, the decision left further action up to the federal government and an increasingly impatient group of individual states that have enacted or are on the verge of enacting stringent controls out of frustration over inaction during six years of the administration of US President George W Bush.

The ruling came just days before an international panel of scientists is to release a much-awaited report on the expected societal and economic affects of global warming, in Brussels on Friday.

In a 5-4 decision, the US high court showed itself just as divided as the throng of states and businesses wrestling over the landmark case.

The arguments revolved around the federal government's environmental agency and a 17-year-old law on air pollution.

Proponents led by the state of Massachusetts - which fears for its coastal regions if global warming's threats of rising sea levels come true - argued that the 1990 Clean Air Act authorizes and even obliges the government to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions, specifically from vehicles.

The case was backed by 12 states, three cities, 14 environmental groups, a ski resort and a number of businesses.

Opponents - led by the EPA and backed by a group of 10 states, nine automakers, utility companies and businesses - argued that carbon dioxide could not readily be defined as an air pollutant, and therefore did not fall under the guise of the 1990 law.

The Supreme Court chose the middle ground, arguing that the EPA clearly has the authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act, but not the obligation.

'The harms associated with climate change are serious and well- recognized ... The risk of catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless real,' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the majority opinion.

He criticized the EPA for offering a 'laundry list of reasons not to regulate.'

That opened the door for 11 states poised to adopt stringent emissions standards on new vehicle models - an authority they also claimed to derive from the Clean Air Act.

Environmental groups welcomed the ruling, but at the same time recognized that rigorous caps on greenhouse gases will likely only emerge through the new Democratic-led Congress, rather than through the 1990 law that makes little mention of global warming.

The US contributes 25 per cent of the world's greenhouse gasses, yet has refused under Bush to join the international Kyoto protocol that sets limits, to the annoyance of most other industrialized countries that have joined.

While the Supreme Court's decision would allow the US government to impose limits on greenhouse gases without having to go back to Congress, Bush has shown no intention of doing so.

He has acknowledged that global warming is a 'serious challenge' but has stood by voluntary caps, saying it's better for the economy.

'This is likely to increase pressure on Congress to act quickly on global warming,' Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, a plaintiff, said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the decision sent a message to the Bush administration to 'stop obstructing environmental progress and start finding solutions.'

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers Monday called for a 'national, federal, economy-wide approach to addressing greenhouse gases,' highlighting growing concern by investors and industry that the emerging patchwork of state regulations could harm the economy more than a nationwide cap on emissions.

The dissenters questioned whether global warming is a localized problem that could be meaningfully addressed by a government agency.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the goal of global warming action 'is literally to change the atmosphere around the world.'

He questioned whether EPA action could improve the situation for the specific plaintiffs; challenged the science backing up global warming; and said the evidence was 'toothless' that global warming was an imminent threat.

'It is difficult to put much stock in the predicted loss of land' faced by Massachusetts, Roberts wrote.

Stevens strongly criticized the EPA - and some of his fellow justices - for deflecting responsibility for addressing global warming, and called on the agency to make a direct case against emission caps.

'EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change,' Stevens wrote.

'Agencies, like legislatures, do not generally resolve massive problems in one fell regulatory swoop ... They instead whittle away at them over time.'