From "Global Warming Ruling Called 'Victory for the Bad Guys" by Melanie Hunter and Monisha Bansal, posted 4/2/07, at CNSnews.com
Global warming skeptics reacted strongly Monday to a Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency has the power to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from cars, calling the decision "bad news" for the country and predicting that the economic fallout will be "vast."
In the first case of its kind to reach the high court, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA the power to regulate greenhouse gases and that the agency has "no reasoned explanation" for not doing so.
"Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act's capacious definition of 'air pollutant' we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles," the court said.
"While we are still reviewing the case for its regulatory implications, having the authority to regulate C02 as a pollutant and justifying that authority are two different things," Marc Morano, spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told Cybercast News Service.
"CO2 is not an air pollutant and should not be treated as one," Morano added.
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the court's decision has broad implications ranging from the judicial standing of environmental plaintiffs to America's economic future.
..."The court's decision empowers EPA to take control of America's global warming policy," argued CEI Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell. "This should certainly be a surprise to Congress, which has been vigorously debating the issue for years.
"For an agency as unaccountable as EPA to be deputized in this way is bad news for the future of our country," he added.
The National Center for Public Policy Research called the decision "a victory for the bad guys in the battle over whether the American people will be governed by accountable elected officials or unaccountable judges."
Read the whole article.
