From Reuters (h/t to reader John)
U.S. justices to hear challenge to Obama on climate change
By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a blow to the Obama administration, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a challenge to part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s first wave of regulations aimed at tackling climate change.
By agreeing to hear a single question of the many presented by nine different petitioners, the court set up its biggest environmental dispute since 2007.
That question is whether the EPA correctly determined that its decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles necessarily required it also to regulate emissions from stationary sources.
The EPA regulations are among President Barack Obama’s most significant measures to address climate change. The U.S. Senate in 2010 scuttled his effort to pass a federal law that would, among other things, have set a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.
More..
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE99E0GB20131015?irpc=932
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Mike Maguire Sez: ‘
Chooch!
Tommy Boy from WRFC.
Cheers!!
Those who want the courts to adjudicate on scientific arguments should be careful what they wish for. Your average judge is scientifically illiterate. It would not be a good precedent at all. What’s more, you can’t get rid of them at the next election.
The lower courts have only ruled on the legal powers of the EPA, not the substance of their actions. If the EPA breaches its own rules in how it makes decisions, that is a legitimate matter for them to rule on, but the substance of the decisions is rightly a matter for the EPA and the legislature.
The only way for the EPA to be reined in is for the legislature to revisit the enabling legislation. Their unwillingness to do so is the real problem here.
It might not be of course. Is it possible that EPA properly put it’s vehicle rules in place, but improperly put stationary rules in place?
The verb “triggers” has me scratching my head. Did EPA assume that their vehicle rule could automatically trigger rules for stationary without proper comment period, documentation, etc?
Someone else mentioned something about EPA’s charter. Has anyone read the arguments against EPA?
Chad Wozniak says:
October 15, 2013 at 8:41 pm
=================
Dude …… put the cap back on the glue. FFS
The SCOTUS is a gang of partisan hacks. Don’t count on them for any commonsense decision.
One of CFSCT’s three main argument points in its amicus brief is:
This is the issue of failure to do a complete benefit-to-risk assessment; failure to do both risk evaluations and benefit evaluations. The EPA only looked at benefits of restricting CO2 emission from fossil fuel use. This mirrors the IPCC only looking at the risks of not restricting CO2 . Two sides of the same ideological coin used by the activist CAGW movement. The ideological coin has a false ‘a prior’ premise that burning CO2 must be a net harm to the point of eventually being dangerous.
CFACT is presenting a good point to the SCOTUS. I can only see it bearing on a potential SCOTUS concern that such failure to evaluate risks of restricting CO2 means the EPA actions have been the result of a fundamental lack of constitutionally required congressional oversight on such government bodies. By oversight I mean direct explicit hands-on oversight.
Why did SCOTUS decide to take the case? That is the most important question to me. Is taking this case a warning flare that signals to BIG government proponents that things have gone too far? I do not know.
John
It’s possible the court is going to hear this issue as it relates to existing plants and the enforcement as a taking of assets unjustifiably.
@Chad Wozniak says: October 15, 2013 at 8:41 pm
I really agree with you. How could anybody be that clueless? Just look at his background. Who were his fellow travelers during college and beyond. Marxists, communists, and various other assorted radicals — socialists all. You can tell a lot about a man by the company who chooses to keep and those he seeks out as friends.
We have a dangerous radical in the White House and we should all be very, very afraid.
@TomR,Worc,MA,USA –
Your insult is very revealing of your character, or rather lack thereof – and places you squarely in the camp of a fascist dictator.
This is what I was thinking.
Does anyone think that a “50 to 1 Project” type of analysis can be used in this case? Seriously, it seems like someone can generate some economic risk numbers associated with restricting CO2. Maybe the economic costs that Germany is now experiencing in having to reverse their trend of their energy infrastructure?
johanna has it right. Lawyers should not attempt to
do science. When they do attempt to do science, they sound ridiculous–
think of a cow attempting to play the violin.