Green Jersey

N.J. and other states sue over global warming

Attorneys general from New Jersey, 16 other states and Washington, D.C. took the federal Environmental Protection Agency back to court today over global warming. The goal: To force some action on motor vehicle emissions standards.

Specifically, the officials want to see the Bush Administration comply with a Supreme Court ruling from last April. The ruling said the EPA can regulate emissions from new cars and trucks and hasn’t come up with a good enough reason not to.

From the Associated Press:

In a petition filed Wednesday, the plaintiffs said the 5-4 ruling in April 2007 required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles.

The EPA has instead done nothing, they said.

New Jersey attorney general Anne Milgram told the Bergen Record: “EPA’s conduct to this point demonstrates a troubling lack of urgency regarding the critical issue of global warming. Moreover, it demonstrates a blatant disregard for the U.S. Supreme Court, which has ordered that EPA stop abdicating its responsibility under the law and act to address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles sooner than later.”

The EPA prefers to wait on this issue.

Why? It prefers a “holistic” approach. The AP quotes spokesman Jonathan Shradar as saying “We want to set a good foundation to build a strong climate policy of potential regulation and laws we can work toward and actually see some success.”

The longer the agency waits, the longer new, stricter emissions standards stay tied up in the courts.

In December, the EPA denied a California-led effort by states to set stricter vehicle emissions standards. From a December 2007 article in Time:

The EPA’s action came after California had waited nearly two years for federal approval of its new auto regulations. Under the Clean Air Act, California has the right to pass auto emissions standards that are tougher than federal ones — a recognition of the state’s historical struggles with air pollution. In this case, the state proposed rules that would have required automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% in all new cars and light trucks by 2016, beginning with the model 2009 year. All California needed was a waiver from the federal government, which has been virtually automatic over the past decades — until this decision, the first time the EPA has said no.

Today’s legal action intends to get the EPA moving within 60 days.

That means getting the EPA to release its findings about the dangers of carbon dioxide, according to the AP, “so the process for regulating vehicle emissions can begin.”