Court exercised proper role in EPA ruling

In the Clean Air Act, Congress clearly included carbon dioxide within the definition of "pollution." Congress also clearly provided the Environmental Protection Agency with legal authority to regulate vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide. In short, Congress, exercising its legislative power, established the law in unequivocal statutory language.

Contrary to the clear language of the federal law, the EPA, under the Bush administration (and with the inexplicable support of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who signed an amicus brief), has asserted it cannot, and will not, regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Fortunately, the Supreme Court recently ruled against the EPA, recognizing that Congress, not the executive branch, makes the laws.

The Deseret Morning News (April 4) maintains that the Supreme Court, in ruling against the EPA, engaged in "judicial activism," making policy concerning global warming that is better left to the legislative and executive branches. The newspaper could not be further off the mark. The Supreme Court did exactly what is contemplated by our Constitution: It interpreted and applied existing law.

This was a textbook example of Congress enacting an unambiguous federal statute, the executive branch — the EPA — disregarding that law and the Supreme Court serving its proper role in interpreting the law and requiring compliance.

By its ruling, the Supreme Court vindicated the balance of power under our constitutional form of government. To have ruled otherwise would have constituted the worst sort of "judicial activism" by permitting the executive branch to ignore federal legislation. Such a ruling would have amounted to saying that the president and executive agencies, such as the EPA, can determine the rules for themselves.

This is a particularly crucial time for our courts to jealously protect our constitutional system against a president and an executive branch that repeatedly act as if our laws do not apply to them. If the rule of law no longer applies, our Constitution and our laws are nothing but mere paper and pretense. In that case, we can no longer claim to be a democracy.