The Supreme Court today handed down its judgment on Massachusetts v EPA, the first case the Court has heard regarding climate change. At issue in the case is the EPA's role in monitoring and regulating automobile emissions.
Section 202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7521(a)(1), requires the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA ") to set emission standards or "any air pollutant" from motor vehicles or motor vehicle engines "which in his judgment cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."
The EPA and the Bush Administration, joined by ten states and six automobile manufacturer organizations, argued that the EPA did not have the authority to regulate GHG emissions, and that even if it did, it needn’t take action to do so.
The state of Massachusetts – joined by eleven other states and fourteen environmental groups – argued that since the EPA’s inaction would directly affect the climate, which would directly affect the state, the state has a right to sue the EPA.
In a 5-4 ruling - which split the ideological wings of the court and had Justice Kennedy serving as the swing vote – the Court called the EPA’s rationale for failing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles “arbitrary, capricious [and] not otherwise in accordance with the law.”
Justice Stevens authored the judgment for the majority, writing: "The risk of catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless real. That risk would be reduced to some extent if petitioners received the relief they seek."
Justice Scalia was roused from his midday nap at the Cheney’s rural Virginian compound to add some viciously hilarious, but off-topic, ad hominem attacks to the dissent.
Lyle Dennison, writing on the SCOTUS blog, called this “the most important environmental ruling in years.”
Comments
I'm curious why everybody thinks that Kennedy was the "swing vote." He didn't author a concurring opinion that said, "well, I was on the fence but voted with the majority for the following reasons:..." He merely signed on with Stevens' majority with Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer.
Your commentary on Scalia is blue-chip, my man.
Doug,
I was actually surprised that Justice Kennedy didn't write a narrower concurrence, mainly based on the questions he was asking at oral arguments. From the transcript, he was hardly an apologist for Massachusetts the way the four "liberals" were, and actually seemed to be more sympathetic to the EPA's position. One possible reason is that Justice Kennedy has his own theories of standing that often differ from the rest of the Justices, but in this case, it looks like the four liberals came around to his way of thinking on standing in order to get him on board with the statutory analysis.
I'm a fan of the decision, but in all fairness to the dissent, it's perfectly reasonable (and almost certainly correct) to think that global warming wasn't even the faintest glimmer in Congress's eye when they passed the Clean Air Act. Of course, that's Congress's bad in drafting a statute that fits greenhouse gases perfectly. But I'll certainly never be one to claim that Congress has any idea what it's doing.
I think there are good arguments against the decision, and while I disagree with Chief Justice Roberts's dissent, it was a perfectly reasonable argument. Justice Scalia's dissent, on the other hand, seemed to be missing its usual intellectual force.
As to why Kennedy didn't write separately, I can only guess. It's the Chief Justice's call on who gets to write each opinion, unless he's in the dissent, in which case the senior justice in the majority (here, Stevens) gets to decide who writes it. I'm assuming that Stevens just plain wanted this one himself, and took Kennedy's concerns into account to keep him from writing a narrowing opinion (since if five justices agree on a judgment, but if one of them writes separately on the reasoning, the narrower reasoning is the controlling opinion of the Court).
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