Clear & Present Danger

A clear and present danger. No less than the Supreme Court of the United States has so described global warming. The New York Times' editorial on the issue presents a clear reading of the decision. The following are excerpts:

It would be hard to overstate the importance of yesterday’s ruling by the Supreme Court that the federal government has the authority to regulate the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by motor vehicles.

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The ruling also demolishes President Bush’s main justification for not acting — his argument that because the Clean Air Act does not specifically mention greenhouse gases, the executive branch has no authority to regulate them. The president has cited other reasons for not acting, including costs. But his narrow reading of the Clean Air Act has always been his ace in the hole.

The court offered a much more “capacious” reading of the act, as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. The plaintiffs — 12 states and 13 environmental groups — had argued, and the court agreed, that while the act does not specifically mention greenhouse gases, it gives the federal government clear jurisdiction over “any air pollutant” that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger “public health or welfare.”

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The administration had also argued that the states did not have standing to sue on this issue because they could not show that they would be harmed by the government’s failure to regulate greenhouse gases. The court ruled that the states have a strong and legitimate interest in protecting their land and their citizens against the dangers of climate change and thus have standing to sue.

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The decision was unnervingly close, and some of the arguments in the dissent, written by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., were cause for concern — especially his comments about the “complexities” of the science of climate change, which is too close for comfort to the administration’s party line.

The Bush Administration has never really represented the American people; it has always been American business interests that served as impetus for its governance and policy-making.