The Supreme Court ordered the Bush Administration on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, removing a major obstacle in California’s own stalled efforts and rebuking what many critics deride as the federal government’s head-in-the’sand approach to global warming.
The ruling gives considerable lift to California’s efforts to reduce the pollution, something automakers and the Bush Administration have vigorously fought.

“This is the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Amy Leuers, California Climate Program manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, on Monday. “Today’s ruling permanently wipes away all of the (administration’s) rationales for not granting California and 10 other states permission … to reduce global warming pollution.”

The lawsuit was filed by Massachusetts, California and 10 other states plus 13 environmental groups that had grown frustrated by the Bush administration’s inaction on global warming.

By a 5-4 margin, the court said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from automobiles.

Federal law considers California a laboratory on environmental issues and gives the state the right to set stricter standards than the national norms. But since the Bush Administration refused to consider carbon dioxide a pollutant, it claimed the state had no authority to limit emissions.

That will change under this ruling.

Full article and link to decision here

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