Rhode Island AG Lynch Prods EPA To Comply With U.S. Supreme Court Global Warming Order

Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch together with the attorneys general of 16 other states and the District of Columbia, two cities, and 11 environmental advocacy groups today asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to respond to last year’s landmark ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA.

That ruling, issued by the U.S. Supreme Court a year ago today, required EPA to make a decision on whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles under the federal Clean Air Act. Today’s court filing, known as a Petition for Mandamus, requests an order requiring EPA to act within 60 days.

“A full year has passed since the United States Supreme Court ruled that EPA must issue a science-based decision as to whether carbon dioxide is endangering public health or welfare, yet EPA has provided zero explanation, zero guidance, and no decision on a matter of crucial importance to the fate of our state, nation, and planet,” Lynch said. “Of course, it’s inexcusable, but it’s also typical of the Bush Administration’s highly selective value system that almost always puts the concerns of industry first and those of the public welfare in a distant second.”

Rhode Island is one of the 12 states that filed the lawsuit, Massachusetts v. EPA, which resulted in last April’s Supreme Court ruling that amounted to a stinging rebuke to the Bush Administration’s policy on global warming. In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled — contrary to the agency’s claim — that the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Court also declared that the EPA could not refuse to exercise that authority based on its policy preferences. Instead, the EPA would have to decide, based on scientific information, whether it believed that greenhouse gas emissions were posing dangers to the public health or welfare.

According to the Petition for Mandamus, after last year’s ruling EPA publicly made clear its belief that greenhouse gases were in fact endangering the public health or welfare. Once EPA arrived at this judgment, however, it should have acted to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. On multiple occasions, the agency has promised that it would respond to the Supreme Court’s opinion by issuing an endangerment determination and draft motor vehicle emission standards by the end of 2007.

The Petition further asserts that the EPA has already prepared an endangerment determination and actually implemented its internal process of drafting an affirmative endangerment determination before its self-imposed deadline.

The EPA has now declined to issue that proposed endangerment determination. Last week, EPA said it would delay responding to the Supreme Court’s opinion until after it conducts a lengthy public comment period later this year to examine policy issues raised by regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Along with Rhode Island, the states filing the Petition are Massachusetts, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Also joining are the District of Columbia, the Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, the City Solicitor of Baltimore, and 11 environmental advocacy groups.

Source: Rhode Island Attorney General

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