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The Supreme Court's ruling Monday on greenhouse gases is a significant victory for Connecticut and other states that have adopted tough automobile emissions programs aimed at reducing the dangers of global warming. But the 5-4 ruling has ramifications that will have an impact on all 50 states, potentially making global warming, as it should be, a regulatory concern of the federal government.
Connecticut and the other states that have adopted higher California standards in their auto emissions-testing programs will be in a safer position to implement them in 2009 under the court's decision. The ruling states that the federal Clean Air Act provides the Environmental Protection Agency both the authority and the responsibility to regulate carbon-based greenhouse gases as well as other air pollutants.
Unless EPA can provide scientific evidence that greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere are not causing climate change, the agency will be in a difficult position to continue its policy of ignoring the global-warming issue and Connecticut and the other states that have led in developing global-warming-related policies will be in a strong position to defend them in court cases already under way.
