Twelve States (Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota) today filed a petition to have the Supreme Court review the D.C. Circuit’s decision not to strike down EPA’s climate regulations.
The States argue that the Congress never intended for the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. The Clean Air Act was designed in 1970, in order to fight smog. The law’s tools and mechanisms are totally inappropriate for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, which are much more prevalent than the pollutants that cause smog.
(full petition follows)
The States allege that EPA has overstepped its legal authority as the Agency tries to square the circle of fighting global warming with a law that was written at a time when people were scared of global cooling.
The full petition is here: http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/States-GHG-petition.pdf
Submitted by James Wallace
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Real quick, spelling in title – 🙂
The fact that Michigan is named in the petition kind of surprises me unless it has to do with the automobile industry. The other not so much as they are mainly energy producers.
It’s a nice thought, but they must know the Supreme Court isn’t going to decide to hear it. Wonder what they really hoped to accomplish by doing this.
NavarreAggie says:
April 22, 2013 at 2:02 pm
Hint.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/12/obama-approves-construction-for-new-detroit-windsor-bridge-estimated-at-3-5-billion/
Twelve States (Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota) today filed a petition …
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What, no California? I’m so surprised!
But seriously, what are they doing? They must realise that EPA is above the law.
It’s a nice thought, but they must know the Supreme Court isn’t going to decide to hear it. Wonder what they really hoped to accomplish by doing this.
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The same thing fake studies do.. Rally the troops with a little hope is never a bad thing.. It also ensures a more severe backlash when Obama kisses the ring with his legacy carbon tax.. So it would seem they are thinking ahead.. This is good.
Josh C said:
April 22, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Real quick, spelling in title – 🙂
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Okay, here you go:
“Twelve States ask SCOTUS to challenge EPA on climate regulation spelling”
🙂
This is a serious constitutional challenge, similar to the one also filed today in California saying that carbon emissions permits are unconstitutional (in the state of California) taxes.
Don’t be so quick to dismiss it. The Roberts Court Struck Down the commerce clause jurisdiction for Obamacare, upholding only taxation. The scope of the Clean Air Act raises similar issues, except taxation is not a fallback. The ultimate wisdom of the Roberts opinion limiting (clearly, if not explicitly, the Commerce clause) may soon become much clearer.
Warning!
Twleve States
It was mentioned already that there is twlouble with spelling in the twitle.
Whhoops! Ya went and fixed while I was mistyping.
If you take the Act verbatum, and account for Human Resperstion, then every school with more than 2500 students will become a stationary object that emits more than 100 tons of CO2 per year and should require annual permits
Let me be clearer. I think (without any substantiation yet except having aced Larry Tribes second year con law at HLS) that Roberts deliberated emulated the famous opinion Marbury v. Madison. If so, that has enormously far reaching consequences, which would apply here. Hope I am correct.
Under any definition one might choose, it will be quite impossible to call a life-providing chemical
a pollutant, which they must accomplish to justify applying any clean air standard. The case seems pretty simple and straightforward.
@Bryan A, April 22, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Pedants Anonymous strike!
“Verbatim” and “Respiration”.
Sorry, just had to do it!
Rud Istvan says:
April 22, 2013 at 2:25 pm
This is a serious constitutional challenge, similar to the one also filed today in California saying that carbon emissions permits are unconstitutional (in the state of California) taxes.
Don’t be so quick to dismiss it…
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I certainly hope you’re right and I’m wrong in this case. Sincerely. Guess we’ll wait and see. 🙁
The implication of the callout:
suggests there are those who think this represents concern. What is the driver behind this? Does someone in authority believe they know what the Earth’s current warmth should be rather than what it is and why they believe that? Does anyone have a mechanism for why it was this warm 1400 years ago given the unavailability of consumer-driven polution? There weren’t even Republicans to blame then. Should we be worried that warmth repeats? If so why? Is there something to explain why that previous warmth level is not a concern but the current identical level of warmth is? Show your work and don’t leave out the role of the sun and clouds or you get a FAIL.
CO2 can’t explain it, and there is no convincing evidence that feedbacks are at play, either. For all the billion$ spent this is becoming a tiresome “Boy who cried wolf” story.
SCOTUS is not interested in the science of the EPA’s ruling – SCOTUS is interested in the agency’s legal authority to make that ruling. It is one of the problems of the current system that there is no method of challenging the EPA cargo cult science.
NavarreAggie says:
April 22, 2013 at 2:02 pm
The fact that Michigan is named in the petition kind of surprises me unless it has to do with the automobile industry. The other not so much as they are mainly energy producers.
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Maybe Michigan recognizes when the feds have reached too far?
The amazing thing is that it’s not all 50 states demanding the feds back off in this and many other areas where they act beyond the law. The feds are trouncing on the 1st, 2nd and 4th Amendments, they’re selling guns to Mexican drug dealers and doing everything they can to cause world wide energy poverty. The US Federal Government is way out of bounds.
cn
Twelve = two left
count to ten on your fingers, two left over.
Alfred
The title may be fixed but the link, which I just shared on FB, still reads, “Twleve” and looks dorky. That’s a technical term.
How does this case square with Mass. v. EPA (2007) in which the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority (and obligation) to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act?
Is this simply a challenge against the particular rules the EPA has adopted?
Friends:
I am not an American and I am asking this question from pure curiosity in hope of understanding what – if any – importance this issue has.
Several people have suggested the US Supreme Court will refuse to hear the case.
Why would the petitioners put the case to the Court if the Court would be unlikely to hear the petition, and why would the Court not hear it?
Please understand that I am genuinely perplexed by this and I suspect it will be incomprehensible to other non-Americans, too.
Richard
In the US, the Supreme Court takes only a tiny number of cases that are referred to it for full hearing. Much more common is to deny certiorari and you’re stuck with whatever the lower court has ruled. There are so many cases coming at them that they generally dodge and avoid ruling on every issue they can possibly avoid. It took decades to find a case that the USSC would take regarding the 2d amendment and it is possible it’ll be decades more before it takes another one. It is, however, a step which everybody takes a chance on because if 4 justices believe that there are constitutional issues, you get a shot at winning your case definitively.
The court has been nibbling around the edge of the commerce clause, hinting that a reworking might be in order. This might be a case egregious enough to get 4 justices on board to cert the case.
richardscourtney says:
April 22, 2013 at 3:45 pm
…Why would the petitioners put the case to the Court if the Court would be unlikely to hear the petition, and why would the Court not hear it?…
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I’ve no answer to the first part of your question, I’m wondering the same thing myself.
As to the second part, I think the court will probably refuse to hear it because they already ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate GHG’s under the Clean Air Act in 2007 as EM pointed out above. But now that I’ve had more time to think it through, I believe the situation is actually worse than that. President Obama has appointed two (Kagan & Sotomayor) justices since then. I hope they elect not to hear it, because I fully expect that if they do decide to hear it they will rule in favor of the EPA. Strictly the politics of the judges.
beg pardon, I meant that two Obama nominated candidates have been appointed, not that Obama appointed them. Sloppy speaking on my part there.