just in case somebody missed it

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last week that the Environmental Protection Agency not only has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases in vehicle emissions, its statutory obligations require it to unless it can prove scientifically that the gases do not contribute to global climate change. This opinion is particularly great because apparently the dissent argued (by Chief Justice Roberts) that the coalition that sued the EPA did not have standing. In order to sue someone in federal court, you have to have standing, which is composed of a "concrete and particularized injury" that is "fairly traceable to the defendant," and that can be addressed by a favorable judicial decision. Over the past 30 years or so, Justice Scalia has made it his business to make standing harder and harder to establish, especially in environmental cases. So this case is a big win on at least two issues: unless they can find some nasty weasely way to weasel out of it, the EPA will have to regulate vehicle emissions; and in the future it may be easier to get standing to sue the EPA on other grounds. The opinion is also remarkable in that courts are usually pretty hesitant to second-guess agency policy decisions, unless they think that the agency has gone absolutely bananas. It's pretty telling that even the Supreme Court is willing to weigh in on the lunacy of the Bush Administration's environmental policy. Here's the NYT article.

. . .