Top court slaps EPA, White House

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday, in what amounts to a rebuke of the Bush administration, that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from automobile emissions and that it has shirked its duty in not doing so.

In a 5-4 decision, the court found that the Clean Air Act expressly authorizes the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, contrary to the EPA's contention, and that if the agency still insists that it does not want to regulate those emissions, it must give better reasons than the "laundry list" of invalid considerations it has offered so far.

The decision is surely not the last word in the continuing debate over the effects of global warming and what can, or should, be done about it. But it was still highly significant in at least two respects.

First, the majority brushed aside the Bush administration's assertion that the Clean Air Act does not treat carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases as "pollutants," and thus does not give the EPA the authority to regulate them.

Secondly, the five justices declared that contrary to the administration, Massachusetts and the 11 other states and various other plaintiffs that sued the EPA do indeed have legal standing to pursue their suit. In order to establish standing, a federal court plaintiff must show that there is an injury that can be traced to the defendant's behavior, and that the injury will be relieved by the action the lawsuit seeks.

Besides Massachusetts, the plaintiff-states were California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Other plaintiffs included the District of Columbia, Baltimore, New York City and a dozen environmental groups.

Several automobile trade groups sided with the EPA, as did the states of Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.

"EPA's steadfast refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions presents a risk of harm to Massachusetts that is both 'actual' and 'imminent,"' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority, citing two standards linked to standing.

"EPA identifies nothing suggesting that Congress meant to curtail EPA's power to treat greenhouse gases as air pollutants," Stevens wrote. Instead, the agency resorted to "impermissible considerations" in rejecting the plaintiffs' request to regulate those admissions, the justice wrote.