18 states file to force EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions
Seventeen states are backing Massachusetts in a petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that would force the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Filed one year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA needed to decide on regulating vehicle emissions - a year in which the EPA failed to take any action - the petition asks that the court demand the EPA release a decision in the next 60 days. When Massachusetts took the EPA to court in 2006 to decide the issue, the senior attorney for the Sierra Club, David Bookbinder, told Newsweek that the Supreme Court would have to issue a clear ruling. "There's really no wiggle room. Either EPA has this authority or not. It's a very plain language case," he said at the time. A year and a half later, here we are.
The states are: 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. Thirteen other entities, including the City of New York and the Mayor and City Council for Baltimore, Friends of the Earth, and the Sierra Club, signed onto the suit.
The Massachusetts Attorney General called the 18-state petition an "extraordinary measure to fight the dangers of climate change." We'll see if this is enough to get the EPA to act this time.
[Source: Massachusetts AG via DieselNet]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cervus 2:35AM (4/07/2008)
Okay, assume that they succeed and we get the regulations. Don't act surprised when gas and electricity prices go up even higher because they have to spend a lot of money trying to meet them. Don't pin the blame on oil companies or utilities. Because in the end, the consumer will end up paying for this.
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Paul Revere 5:41AM (4/07/2008)
We are coming out of the coldest winter and summer in 100 years in some parts of the world, and the warmonger perpetrators of the biggest hoax in history are pushing us straight ahead with their economy-wrecking/ mass impoverishmen/ freedom destroying scheme that will do NOTHING towards climate change. I despise those America-hating quasi-fascist globalcrat pseudo-intellectual morons!
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BlackbirdHighway 6:13AM (4/07/2008)
It wasn't the coldest winter in 100 years at the Wilkins Ice Shelf. which recently collasped. The region has seen unprecedented rates of warming during the past 50 years. Two of the 10 shelves along the Antarctic peninsula have vanished within the past 30 years. Another five have lost between 60 percent and 92 percent of their original extent. Of the 10, Wilkins is the southernmost shelf in the area to start buckling under global warming's effects.
"Wilkins is a stepping stone in a larger process," says Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., who discovered the breakup in satellite images. "It's really a story of what's yet to come if the mainland of Antarctica begins to warm."
Recently 63 glaciers were discovered that have completely stopped receding, so maybe global warming is over? But then, the only reason they stopped is because they are gone, completely melted away.
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Edsel 7:25AM (4/07/2008)
Our Massachusetts Attorney General's have a long history of "tilting at windmills".
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Chris 7:52AM (4/07/2008)
LOL
Government lackeys looking for more ways to punish you for living your life. Looking to intrude in your lives in more ways instead of doing the work that they started already in other areas but don't make headlines.
IOW - rely on the ignorance of the public (greenhouse gases - lolcat - co2 isn't affect the earth's temperature) and grab headlines to help support bids for higher offices.
all they have to do is rely on envy and class warfare to succeed
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stevefazek 8:49AM (4/07/2008)
will dumb redneck neo cons who say everything they hear on talk radio as their own opinion please STFU here. IF you actually spent 5 min of research you would of seen it was one of the warmer winters. By warm we mean higher then the average temp of years past that still means we get snow. Also one or 2 years data doesnt mean crap. If you look at weather patterns for the past 120 years youll see the earth is getting warmer
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MikeW 10:04AM (4/07/2008)
AGW, or sorry the term is now ACC (climate change)
because the sun is very finicky (more like a fickle bitch, but really, can we complain, because without her, we are dead)
I think there might be one more spike before the big cool off.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/april2008/040408graph.jpg
or maybe not.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.com/co2_temperature.html
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einstein 10:43AM (4/07/2008)
Corect me if I am wrong (just kidding!)but can anyone explain why we think anyone in a government position that is electable is smart enough to find his or her own rear end without having a staff member or polling agency explain where to find it? There is not a government run program that does much more than chew up money without solving the problem it was set up to solve. I cannot imagine we have a major greenhouse gas problem here in Oregon because it rains all of the time. There are a few bad days in late summer when the local EPA folks go comppletely nuts with their air quality warnings, but that is about it. The state capitol city of Salem does not even have emissions testing vor vehicles while much of the state must suffer through emissions testing. Why is that? I am guessing the state governmnent employees and elected officials in Salem do not want their vehicles tested, but they want to test everyone else' vehicles. Go figure..............
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sensitive_man 12:05PM (4/07/2008)
I never knew so many "green" auto junkies were such ignoramuses but it is evident by the majority of the post here that it is true.
Yes keep on living your life, consume more and more until there is nothing left to eat, drink or make shelter from. I know you can do it and it will make your mom so proud too!
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KarenRei 12:22PM (4/07/2008)
"We are coming out of the coldest winter and summer in 100 years in some parts of the world"
Globally, last winter was *above average*, despite it being the *deepest La Nina since '88-'89*.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2008-03-13-global-winter_N.htm
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/news/cc_global_variability.html
"I despise those America-hating quasi-fascist globalcrat pseudo-intellectual morons!"
You realize that the plurality of the world's climate scientists are *from America*, right? That every major American scientific organization that has made a statement on global warming supports the scientific consensus position with the exception of the Association of Petroleum Engineers, which has now moved from "opposed" to "neutral"? There are 40-50 scientists in the field, at last count, who deny anthropogenic global warming (most of them mild denials), compared to several thousand who accept it.
But nah, it's all an anti-American fascist conspiracy. Believe whatever you want. :)
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Kevin Nugent 7:55PM (4/07/2008)
Well finally . i think new york shoudl be among them
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Julius 11:05PM (4/07/2008)
I think cervus got it right - it'll cost us all more in the end... something that'll do wonders for us in a recession.
The only way to reduce greenhouse gas production on a national scale is to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used - not just in transportation, but in power generation and manufacturing as well.
And I'd have to presume that a "cap and trade" will still be a necessary part of the solution, as many forms of alternative energy are far from viable - solar in the far Northern states in winter, for example.
So yes, someone will have to pay for it in the end... but then again, maybe this is a way for the government to reduce the deficit - like some towns use speeding and red-light cameras...
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