Massachusetts Leads Bid to Limit Greenhouse Emissions

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Massachusetts Leads Bid to Limit Greenhouse Emissions
By Beth Daley and Stephanie Ebbert
The Boston Globe

Thursday 03 April 2008

Eighteen states ask court to press EPA on car, truck gases.

Eighteen states, led by Massachusetts , filed an unusual legal petition in federal court yesterday to pressure the US Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks - a move that could lead the automobile industry to produce cleaner-burning cars.

The filing came on the first anniversary of a landmark US Supreme Court ruling that such greenhouse gases are pollutants, and was designed to highlight the lack of progress since then. It also came in the face of suggestions that the White House is stalling approval of a document that would declare these emissions are harmful to public health.

"Once again the EPA has forced our hand, which has resulted in our taking this extraordinary measure to fight the dangers of climate change," Attorney General Martha Coakley of Massachusetts , which is leading the petition, said in a statement. "The EPA's failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty."

The justices last year ordered the EPA to formally declare whether carbon dioxide and other global warming gases from motor vehicles could harm human health, and if so, to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. Specifically, yesterday's petition asked the US Court of Appeals in Washington to order the EPA to make that determination within 60 days.

If the states are successful and the agency rules that the gases can harm human health, it could lead to requirements that vehicles emit fewer greenhouse gases. This could be accomplished by requiring new cars to get better gas mileage or encouraging consumers to buy smaller vehicles or hybrid cars.

The states want the federal government to act before President Bush leaves office. Scientific evidence is growing that the manmade release of heat-trapping gases from power plants, vehicles, and factories will lead to public health problems, such as more common heat waves and increased plant pollens that can aggravate allergies and asthma, yet the Bush administration has repeatedly failed to regulate the gases. States and environmental organizations want greenhouse gas emission limits for power plants and factories in addition to vehicles.

Meanwhile, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by US Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, last night issued a subpoena to the EPA administrator seeking draft documents prepared by the agency to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.

An investigation by another congressional committee indicated that the federal agency has already determined the gases do pose a danger to human health.

Jonathan Shradar, an EPA spokesman, said the agency is reviewing the states' petition and expects to make a decision on the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions later this spring.

As to the subpoena, he said: "We will review the committee's action and respond appropriately." He pointed out that the agency recently decided to review greenhouse gases in a more "holistic fashion" by looking at all sources - not just motor vehicles.

Attorneys for the states and activists say the EPA has been making such promises for years.

"We've waited almost a decade for the EPA to act on this issue and as much as the administration may think that the problem may simply go away, it won't. And today's action is a step to make sure that it won't," said Joseph Mendelson, legal director for the International Center for Technology Assessment, which brought the first lawsuit about the issue against the EPA in 1999 and was one of about a dozen environmental and advocacy groups and three cities that joined the states in filing the petition yesterday.

The Supreme Court did not set a deadline for the EPA to make its determination, though EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had set his own timeline for release by the end of 2007.

The states argue that the government has improperly delayed a decision. They cite the findings of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which concluded that the EPA's proposed decision that greenhouse gases threaten health had been sent to the Office of Management and Budget in December 2007. The states' petition contends that the decision is now being held up by the White House budget office.

Pat Parenteau, professor of law at Vermont Law School, said the states' case has a chance of succeeding. "If the petitioners can convince the Court of Appeals that there's some monkey business going on here ... then I think they get across the goal line," he said.

If the appeals court orders the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases are a hazard, the agency would still need time to develop, publicize, and finalize regulations for regulating vehicle emissions - a process expected to outlast the Bush administration.

Still, the states and advocates petitioning the court maintained that action should not be postponed for the next administration.

"I want to emphasize: Time is not on our side," said Assistant Attorney General James R. Milkey of Massachusetts . "Every day that goes by without a solution, the window of opportunity to fix the problem closes a little more."



Friends of the Earth Demands Resignation of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson
Friends of the Earth | Press Release

Wednesday 02 April 2008

Johnson's failed tenure includes repeated rejections of EPA scientists' advice, continuing inaction on global warming a full year after groundbreaking Supreme Court decision.

Washington, DC - On the one-year anniversary of a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision that directed the Environmental Protection Agency to address global warming, Friends of the Earth today called on EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to resign. The group said Johnson has mismanaged the agency in a way that has been flatly inconsistent with its mission and has put the planet's future at risk.

In a letter sent to Johnson, Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder wrote, "You have repeatedly demonstrated that you are incapable of providing the environmental stewardship that is required to successfully lead the agency you head. We call on you to resign."

Friends of the Earth based its decision to call for Johnson's resignation on repeated failures of leadership that include:

* Delaying the Bush administration's response to a Supreme Court holding in Mass v. EPA that greenhouse gas emissions are pollutants; today is the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling, but just last week Johnson detailed a lengthy process that makes any action during the remainder of the Bush administration unlikely.
* Rejecting California's request for a waiver that would allow it to limit global warming pollution from vehicles; this decision was at odds with the recommendation of EPA career experts and prevents the implementation of laws passed in more than a dozen states.
* Setting ozone pollution limits at unhealthy levels, rejecting the recommendations of EPA scientists after a last-minute political intervention by President Bush.
* Failing to respond promptly to petitions filed by environmental groups calling on the EPA to regulate global warming pollution from ships and aircraft.
* Issuing a misguided wetlands ruling Tuesday that encourages developers who build in wetlands to purchase credits rather than restoring or improving nearby wetlands.

"Johnson repeatedly goes out of his way to disregard the opinions of EPA scientists and staff, making decisions with logic that is inconsistent, contradictory and paradoxical," Blackwelder said. "His decisions have recklessly endangered the planet. Instead of acting on behalf of the public interest, he has catered to corporate polluters and special interests. As the journal Nature has editorialized, Johnson is 'sabotaging' the EPA 'with reckless disregard for law, science or the agency's own rules.' It is time for Johnson to go."

Johnson's decision-making has been widely criticized during his tenure, most notably by his own employees. In a February 25 letter from their labor unions, EPA staff accused Johnson of repeatedly ignoring the EPA's Principles of Scientific Integrity. This has raised concerns about a potential exodus of career EPA employees if Johnson remains in office.

Friends of the Earth was one of the first groups to call for the resignation of Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt in the 1980s and led the fight that resulted in his eventual ouster.

Friends of the Earth (www.foe.org) is the US voice of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 70 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has been at the forefront of high-profile efforts to create a more healthy, just world.

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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs


Jan. 20, 2009
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