US Supreme Court rules that EPA can regulate greenhouse gases

The Bush administration was dealt a major defeat to its environmental ignorance policies today when the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the current Clean Air Act. By a 5-4 decision (with Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Scalia dissenting) the majority ruled that the EPA "has offered no reasoned explanation" for not doing something about greenhouse gases.

Justice John Paul Stevens, wrote the majority opinion and said that the EPA's previous decision not do anything about greenhouse gases "arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law." The court has not dictated what the regulations should be, only that the EPA has the power do something and must justify any action or inaction on the subject. Given the Bush administration's disdain for environmental enforcement, it remains unlikely that anything will be done until at least after January 2009.

[Source: Reuters]