18 states try to force EPA to address emission issue

BOSTON – Officials of 18 states, including Maine, are taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.

In a petition filed Wednesday, the plaintiffs said last April’s 5-4 ruling required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles.

The EPA has instead done nothing, they said.

“The EPA’s failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, one of 17 state attorneys general involved Wednesday’s court action. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is also involved.

The petition asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require the EPA to act within 60 days.

Meanwhile, Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced legislation Wednesday to set a deadline for the EPA to complete an endangerment finding on the public health threat from greenhouse gas emissions. The bill would require action within 60 days of enactment.

“The administration has a court-mandated obligation that they can no longer ignore,” Snowe said in a statement. “Their deliberate efforts to delay adherence to the Supreme Court’s decision is reckless and irresponsible. The administration’s response to global warming must coincide with what the science and the American people require.”

In last year’s decision, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA has the authority to regulate emissions from new cars and trucks under the Clean Air Act, and said the reasons the EPA gave for declining to do so were insufficient.

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the Supreme Court required the agency to evaluate how it would regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and other vehicles but set no deadline.

The EPA plans to include the evaluation in a formal rule-making the agency announced last week, which will look at how to best regulate all greenhouse gas emissions, not just those from vehicles, he said. Otherwise, a mash of laws and regulations could emerge rather than the “holistic” approach the administration favors.

“We want to set a good foundation to build a strong climate policy of potential regulation and laws we can work toward and actually see some success,” Shradar said.

David Brookbinder of the Sierra Club, one of 11 environmental groups in the suit, said the EPA has been talking about a “holistic” approach to climate change for years. “In fact, they have done absolutely nothing except stand in the way of everybody’s else’s efforts,” he said.

Last week’s EPA announcement of the formal rule-making procedure signaled it wanted to put greenhouse gas regulation “on indefinite hold,” which isn’t acceptable, said Jim Milkey, chief of environmental protection at the Coakley’s office, who argued the case before the Supreme Court.

“Every day that goes by without a solution, the window of opportunity to fix the problem closes a bit more,” he said.

The plaintiffs contend the EPA has already completed the work needed to start regulating carbon dioxide.

“On this issue, the U.S. EPA has failed to lead, it has failed to follow the states’ lead and we are prepared to force it out of the way in order to protect the environment,” said California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Supreme Court ruling requires the EPA to regulate CO2 if it determines it’s a danger to public health and welfare. Senior EPA employees have told House investigators about a tentative finding from early December that CO2 posed a danger because of its climate impact.