By Lora A. Lucero, AICP
On June 26, 2006, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear next term the “global warming” case brought by the state of Massachusetts and others against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Without a doubt, all eyes should be focused on this case, certainly the bellwether for how the Justices will respond to environmental challenges for many years to come. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have both joined the Court this term, creating a new team with a very scant track record from which to make predictions.
The American Planning Association decided to join the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, and the City of Seattle to urge the Court to accept this case for review. Why? As local officials and planners, we will be the first responders for the variety of disasters that climate change may create, such as the deadly heat waves that strike with special force in urban areas and the storm surges that threaten heavily populated coastal municipalities. Local governments have a special responsibility to protect, rescue, and rebuild after natural cataclysms of the kind that are likely to increase as the earth warms. They also must grapple with the daily effects of climate change: unreliable municipal water supplies caused by droughts or flash floods and heat-induced air pollution that violates federal standards. Click here to read our amicus brief, prepared by Tim Dowling of the Community Rights Counsel.
What’s at stake in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency? The Clean Air Act requires the EPA administrator to set standards for emissions of any air pollutant from motor vehicles or motor vehicle engines “which in his judgment causes or contributes to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” [§202(A)1) of the Clean Air Act, 42 USC §7521(A)(1)]
Nearly 50,000 citizens submitted comments to EPA regarding the 1999 petition to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In response, EPA declined to reveal its view as to whether greenhouse gases are reasonably anticipated to endanger the public health or welfare. Instead, it articulated a reading of the Clean Air Act that contravenes the exceedingly broad definition of “air pollutant.” When the EPA administrator decided not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, some 30 parties — including 12 states with a combined total population exceeding 100 million people — appealed to the D.C. Circuit for review. That court issued a badly fractured ruling, with one judge affirming the EPA’s decision on standing grounds, another affirming on policy grounds nowhere mentioned in the Clean Air Act, and a third authoring a lengthy and blistering dissent. The dissenting judge wrote: “Indeed, if global warming is not a matter of exceptional importance, then those words have no meaning.”
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Research credit to: Kate G.