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SCOTUS: Clean Air Act Trumps Emissions Lawsuits
schwit1 writes "The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a global warming lawsuit against five big power companies, its most important environmental ruling since 2007 and a victory for the utilities and the Obama administration. The justices unanimously overturned a ruling by a US appeals court that the lawsuit now involving six states can proceed in an effort to force the coal-burning plants to cut emissions of gases that contribute to climate change. In a defeat for environmentalists, the Supreme Court agreed with the companies that regulating greenhouse gases should be left to the Environmental Protection Agency under the clean air laws. The ruling stemmed from a 2004 lawsuit claiming the five electric utilities have created a public nuisance by contributing to climate change. The lawsuit wanted a federal judge to order them to cut their carbon dioxide emissions."
We'll trade you the Stanley Cup for a discount.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The complainants were smacked down unanimously simply because suing the power companies is the wrong target. They are free to sue EPA once it hands down regs, and SCOTUS made this clear. I'm not sure why they thought anything different would happen here.
This is an interesting ruling to me in that it is more about the balance of power between the three branches of government than it is about the subject of the lawsuit, greenhouse gases in this case.
It has become fairly common for activists to seek court orders to impose their pet issues rather than go through the incredibly slow sausage-making process of legislative reform. This ruling is a smackdown from the Supreme Court saying "no, you six states cannot get a judge to rewrite environmental policy for you. If you want a policy change, you have to do it the old-fashioned way, by getting Congress to tell the EPA what to do. That's why you states have representatives in Congress in the first place."
Regardless of how one feels about CO2 emissions regulation, I think it is none the less a Good Thing that SCOTUS has blocked off this back channel to overriding the normal policy-making process. It's not a sweeping ruling but it is a precedent. Also interesting is that here we have a clear case of the judiciary ruling to limit the power of ... the judiciary. Kind of. How often do you see something like that?
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Releasing CO2 isn't illegal as long as it falls within current regulations. Suing the power companies is like me suing smokers (who are smoking in legal places).
If companies were dumping enough oxygen into the air for it to be a threat to our quality of life, then yes.
You can do anything you want as long as you don't fry the frickin' planet.
Is that too much to ask? Apparently yes for many people.
And don't give me "the science is wrong" crap. I heard it straight from the co-chair of working group 1 of the IPCC last week.
The science is high-quality. The predictions are getting worse (for us) every time they are revised. The evidence that humans
are a major cause is clear. As the CO2 is increasing, O2 is decreasing correspondingly, showing that the CO2 emissions
are from combustion processes. "The science is wrong" is a desperate last-ditch appeal by the ignorant or malicious to
the ignorant.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It's number two. The states were suing companies over power plants operated OUTSIDE those states, even though those companies were complying with state and federal laws. The states were arguing that producing CO2 is a "public nuisance" and trying to get them to reduce emissions across the entire country, not just within their own borders. The supreme court ruled that that's the EPA's job, and that if they are not satisfied with the EPA's rules (not yet released) then there are legal channels in place to appeal those rules. They are just still under review and so cannot be appealed until they exist.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI