How the EPA found a way to fall on it's sword one more time in the waning days of Bu$hCo

In March of this year, the GAO warned that the EPA's IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System) database was at risk of becoming obsolete because the EPA is buried under pending assessments of threats posed by chemicals present in the environment. When I say it is buried, that is almost an understatement. In fiscal years 2006 and 2007, a total of four assessments were completed of thirty two submitted over the same period of time. Currently, over seventy assessments are pending. [The chart below, found on p.7 of the report illustrates the increase in the backlog and the decrease in completion of reporting.]



In response to the GAOs findings, in early April the EPA issued it's revised IRIS assessment process, supposedly aimed at streamlining the process and promoting transparency and increasing confidence in the credibility of assessments. Instead, the changes the EPA employed gave the White House the ability to further obstruct the process. Under the guise of "streamlining" another layer was added - bringing the Office of Management and Budget into the mix, and the OMB promptly started two investigations that are holding up the release of assessments.

Earlier this week, the GAO weighed in on the EPA's "efforts."

EPA’s new process expressly defines such comments as “deliberative” and excludes them from the public record. GAO continues to believe that it is critical that input from all parties—particularly agencies that may be affected by the outcome of IRIS assessments—be publicly available. In addition, the estimated time frames under the new process, especially for chemicals of key concern, will likely perpetuate the cycle of delays to which the majority of ongoing assessments have been subject. Instead of significantly streamlining the process, which GAO recommended, EPA has institutionalized a process that from the outset is estimated to take 6 to 8 years to complete. This is problematic because of the substantial rework such cases often require to take into account changing science and methodologies. Since EPA’s new process is not responsive to GAO’s recommendations, the viability of this critical database has been further jeopardized. [p.2]

Another change keeps comments from other federal agencies on assessments out of the public record.

It is important that the comments of other agencies be included in the public record because although IRIS assessments are not by nature regulatory, quantitative IRIS values are one of the data points considered when risk-management decisions are made and therefore they serve as a benchmark of regulatory consideration.

This process is obstructed by the fact that the completion process for assessments is so dismal. Because of the staggering backlog, the EPA has been unable to complete assessments of key chemicals that are in the forefront of public health concern for their known health risks, including carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. Chemicals awaiting formal assessment include known offenders like trichloroethylene (TCE), naphthalene, tetrachloroethylene, dioxin, and formaldehyde.

And just when you thought that the process was just about manipulated to the max - they manage to throw one more spanner in the works - unlike every other department in FDA and pretty much all departments across all agencies of the federal government - there is no timeline for completion of assessments.

IRIS was put in place in 1985 to increase constituent confidence in the agency and the governments ability to protect it's citizens, after high-profile chemical contamination cases led to the abandonment of first Love Canal, New York in 1981, and then Times Beach, Missouri in 1985. The database was conceived of as a sort of clearing house for information on toxic chemicals.

Its importance has increased over time as EPA program offices and the states have increasingly relied on IRIS information in making environmental protection decisions. Currently, the IRIS database contains assessments of more than 540 chemicals. According to EPA, national and international users access the IRIS database approximately 9 million times a year. EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development has described IRIS as the premier national and international source for qualitative and quantitative chemical risk information; other federal agencies have noted that IRIS data are widely accepted by all levels of government across the country for application of public health policy, providing benefits such as uniform, standardized methods for toxicology testing and risk assessment, as well as uniform toxicity values. Similarly, a private-sector risk assessment expert has stated that the IRIS database has become the most important source of regulatory toxicity values for use across EPA’s programs and is also widely used across state programs and internationally.

Historically and currently, the focus of IRIS toxicity assessments has been on the potential health effects of long-term (chronic) exposure to chemicals. According to OMB, EPA is the only federal agency that develops qualitative and quantitative assessments of both cancer and noncancer risks of exposure to chemicals, and EPA does so largely under the IRIS program. [p.3]

When the GAO revisited the system changes that the EPA announced in April, they discovered that the new tweaks were actually counterproductive. The new requirement that OMB review assessments contributes to the backlog - assessments completed by the EPA essentially stnd on line awaiting OMB approval before they are released. And every single delay presents the distinct possibility that the entire process will have to be started over again as methodologies and best practices advance.

Further, because EPA staff time continues to be dedicated to completing assessments in the backlog, EPA’s ability to both keep the more than 540 existing assessments up to date and initiate new assessments is limited. Importantly, EPA program offices and state and local entities have requested assessments of hundreds of chemicals not yet in IRIS, and EPA data as of 2003 indicated that the assessments of 287 chemicals in the database may be outdated—that is, new information could change the risk estimates currently in IRIS or enable EPA to develop additional risk estimates for chemicals in the database (for example, developing a cancer potency estimate for assessments with only noncancer estimates). In addition, because EPA’s 2003 data are now more than 4 years old, it is likely that more assessments may be outdated now.

The consequences of not having current, credible IRIS information can be significant. EPA’s inability to complete its assessment of formaldehyde, which the agency initiated in 1997 to update information already in IRIS on the chemical, has had a significant impact on EPA’s air toxics program. Although in 2003 and 2004, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) had released updates to major epidemiological studies of industrial workers that showed a relationship between formaldehyde and certain cancers, including leukemia, EPA did not move forward to finalize an IRIS assessment incorporating these important data. Instead, EPA opted to await the results of another update to the National Cancer Institute study. While this additional research was originally estimated to take, at most, 18 months to complete, at the time of our report (more than 3 years later) the update was not complete. In the absence of this information, EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation decided to use risk information developed by an industry-funded organization—the CIIT Centers for Health Research—for a national emissions standard. This decision was a factor in EPA exempting certain facilities with formaldehyde emissions from the national emissions standard.[p.7-8]

Yes -you caught that right. Data from a study funded by the chemical industry was used to formulate the assessment of health risk for formaldehyde. The mind boggles...

Actually, what they have done by intent is what has occurred by accident and derailed a thousand promising research projects. I spent a big part of my career in research labs, and we have a name for the phenomenon they have employed by design. We call it "paralysis by analysis."

The EPA is yet another federal agency that has been crippled and undermined, kept from completing it's mission, and the detriment of the agency has served to the benefit a select few who have been allowed to operate under outdated assessments and continue polluting at unsafe rates.

The next president needs an EPA chief with a strong background in toxicology and environmental sciences. And the balls to stand up to gigantic, polluting corporations who perceive the best interest of human beings - especially poor and powerless ones - to be diametrically opposed to their own.

The next person to head up the EPA will be tackling a thankless job, and have to do battle every day - but battle he or she must, because the job they will be tasked with will have an impact on the quality of life and health of future generations for the foreseeable future.

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Stealing the sunshine (hypothesis) from climate change deniers

[x-posted on The 2 Dollar Bill]

The bulk of scientists have been suggesting for at least a few months that solar output has not been the responsible factor in climate change... much to the dismay of climate change deniers and skeptics.

Today, a more notable report came to light (no pun intended) from the University of Lancaster (UK) which says scientists found there has been

no significant link between [changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature] in the last 20 years.

And

Over the course of one of the Sun's natural 11-year cycles, there was a weak correlation between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover - but cosmic ray variability could at the very most explain only a quarter of the changes in cloudiness.

And for the following cycle, no correlation was found.

"This work is important as it provides an upper limit on the cosmic ray-cloud effect in global satellite cloud data," commented Dr Giles Harrison from Reading University, a leading researcher in the physics of clouds.

His own research, looking at the UK only, has also suggested that cosmic rays make only a very weak contribution to cloud formation.

The Svensmark hypothesis has also been attacked in recent months by Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory. He showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been rising, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions has outweighed that of the Sun by a factor of about 13 to one.

Meanwhile, it's not just Iraq that's got folks up in arms. They're tired of the immovable position of the Bush Administration on Climate Change.

The question is: Is Carbon Dioxide (CO²) dangerous to humankind?

Obviously, we exhale it. But on the platform of climate change, is CO² dangerous? Some state's attorneys general believe so. They AG's from 18 states, two cities and 11 environmental groups stated

in a court filing Wednesday that the EPA has not issued a decision on regulation. Their court filing seeks to compel the EPA to act within 60 days.

“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.

The Sierra Club, which is also part of the lawsuit, accused the Bush administration of favoring industry. "While this administration has done everything possible to make a mockery of the rule of law in this country, it’s still stunning that they refuse to yield even to the high court," said Sierra Club legal counsel David Bookbinder.

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 plaintiffs argue that there's enough data and information to make an informed decision now.

The Supreme Court ruling requires the agency to regulate carbon dioxide if it determines it is a danger to public health and welfare....

...Senior EPA employees have told congressional investigators in the House about a tentative finding from early December that CO2 posed a danger because of its climate impact. They said a draft regulation was distributed to the Transportation Department and the White House.

The EPA officials, in interviews with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said those findings were put on hold abruptly.

Surprise, surprise.

So if Congress won't act, perhaps the States will. It's beginning to sound like a full court press in the finals days of the Administration. Perhaps by next January the United States will have some respectable (or nearly respectable) environmental and climate change policy that will help us move toward more sustainable levels of emissions.

This will be very interesting to watch.

For a great writeup on the history of the climate change "debate" which appeared in Newsweek a few months ago, read this. It should be required reading for anyone running for office, to say the least.

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Another system that worked, destroyed by the Bush administration

Most of the authors who post to this blog can fairly be categorized as good-government Democrats. We took a shine to that government we learned about in ninth grade civics, and have spent the intervening years telling anyone who would listen that we really ought to give it a whirl.

Being good-government Democrats, we have been horrified as agency after agency that serves the public good has been gutted and parceled out under this administration. The GAO, the DoJ, the CDC...

One of those things that worked that fell prey to this administration was the EPA library system. (The EPA laboratory system has been decimated, too, but that will be another post.) The facilities started shutting down a couple of years ago, but not a lot of notice was paid to it - scientists protested, but we are a tiny fraction of the population and we are in hostile territory with this anti-science administration any way. We don't get a lot of love from these folks, but we don't sit up at night crying about it, either. We do sit up crying at night over the closing of scientific libraries that provide information and educational services to researchers, academicians and the public at large.

Now the GAO is advising that the EPA slow down on their restructuring activities and make sure that they are employing best practices and procedures when making changes to the library network.

EPA’s primary rationale for the library network reorganization was to
generate cost savings by creating a more coordinated library network and increasing the electronic delivery of services. However, EPA did not fully follow procedures recommended in a 2004 EPA study of steps that should be taken to prepare for a reorganization. In particular, EPA did not fully evaluate alternative models, and associated costs and benefits, of library services. EPA officials stated that they needed to act quickly to reorganize the library network in response to a proposed fiscal year 2007 funding reduction.

EPA did not develop procedures to inform staff and the public on the final configuration of the library network, and EPA libraries varied considerably and were limited in the extent to which they communicated with and solicited views from stakeholders before and during the reorganization effort. In particular, EPA’s plan did not include information that the Chemical Library was to close, and EPA did not inform staff or the public until after the fact. EPA’s communication procedures were limited or inconsistent because EPA acted quickly to make changes in response to a proposed fiscal year 2007 funding reduction, and because of the decentralized nature of the library network. EPA is currently increasing its communication efforts.

EPA does not have a post-reorganization strategy to ensure the continuity of library services and has not yet determined the full effect of the reorganization on library services. Moreover, EPA has recently made several changes that could have impaired user access to library materials and services. For example, EPA did not determine whether federal property management regulations applied to the dispersal and disposal of library materials before it closed the libraries. Furthermore, EPA lacked oversight of the reorganization process and does not have procedures that would allow the agency to measure performance and monitor user needs.

Currently, the libraries remaining in the network answer to a variety of different offices. Each office makes general decisions about funding allocations and funding the reorganization activities. When a $2 million budget shortfall was handed down in FY 2007, the EPA specifically directed that the libraries absorb the cuts first, but they did not offer any guidelines or protocols for achieving the reductions. The rationale for the shutdowns and restructuring was cost savings, and no shut-down fees were allocated. The libraries were targeted in spite of being found cost efficient in a 2004 audit, and in spite of providing a unique and important public service. The GAO found that the "EPA did not effectively justify its decision to reorganize the library network because it did not implement a process for conducting a number of analyses, including many that were recommended in its own study of the libraries, prior to initiating the reorganization." (PAGE 4)

The GAO also found that the EPA not only failed to follow best practices, but they also failed to follow regulations from the OMB. (PAGE 5)

Office of Management and Budget guidance recommends that agencies conduct a benefit-cost analysis to support decisions to initiate, renew, or expand programs or projects, and that, in conducting such an analysis, tangible and intangible benefits and costs be identified, assessed, and reported. However, EPA did not perform a benefit-cost analysis in this case. According to EPA officials, OEI decided to reorganize its libraries without completing the recommended analyses because it wanted to reduce its fiscal year 2007 funding by $2 million to create the savings necessary for its headquarters library and the regional office libraries per
the President’s budget proposal.

Nor were stakeholders informed of the consequences of the restructuring, and communications strategies were inconsistent and slap-dash, failing to inform affected personnel both internal and external how the proposed changes and closures would affect them and what strategies could be employed to assure that access to vital research materials remain available to scientists and the general public alike. They also failed to solicit feedback, another box on the checklist that is supposed to keep silly things like closing down libraries willy-nilly from happening in the first place.

Now, after the fact, they are reaching out to stakeholders, now that the damage is done, so to speak. But they are reaching out without an effective strategy to ensure the continuity of library services, and without having a clear idea of how the restructuring has affected the availability of library services.

The GAO also found that the EPA did not follow standard protocols (best practices) that are designed assist organizations during mergers and restructuring, but things as basic as feedback from staff were not employed, instead the restructuring seemed to be top-down and somewhat arbitrary. The EPA describes it's library plan as "phased approach" but it has no goals, timelines or evaluation mechanisms in place. The criteria offered by the EPA has been vague and the guidance and oversight has been relatively non-existent.

The GAO recommends that the EPA continue the current moratorium on further changes to the library system while the system as it exists today is fully assessed and a plan for completing the restructuring is developed and a plan for implementation in place.

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Latest Bush Flouting Of The Law Is Over EPA Ozone Rules

The Bush administration's contempt for the law is a litany that goes back pretty much to Jan. 20, 2001, and even before then, if one includes the presidential campaign and an administration-"elect".

Let's add one more outrage to the long, long list. The Washington Post reports that Il Doofus himself intervened in an EPA ozone rules matter this week in an astonishing way:

Onward.
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.

EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.

"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.

So, where was the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency while this was happening?

WaPo again: The effort to rewrite the language -- on the day the agency faced a statutory deadline -- forced EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson to postpone at the last moment a scheduled news conference to announce the new rules. It finally took place at 6 p.m., five hours later than planned.

This is just one more among hundreds of "outrages of the day" that many have observed about the Bush administration from the beginning. But it brings to mind the disappointment of many who see this conduct for what it is. By now I would have hoped that Dick Cheney would be facing impeachment proceedings, and that the hot seat would be dusted off next for Il Doofus hisownself. But we seem to live in an age in which moral courage is lacking in high places, even among those from whom it was most expected.

To read the entirety of this particular outrage from Il Doofus and the Gang, go here.

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California to sue BushCo over EPA waiver denial

As I noted earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency, in wake of the new energy bill and its higher car mileage standards that Congress just passed, denied California (and 12 other states wanting to piggyback) a waiver to institute new standards on carbon dioxide emissions.

Well, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t taking it lying down. He says he’s going to sue.

“I am extremely disappointed by EPA's decision to block the will of millions of people in California and 16 other states who want us to take tough action against global warming,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

“I have no doubt that we will prevail because the law, science, and the public’s demand for leadership are on our side,” Schwarzenegger said.

Fortunately, with the BushCo clock running, the EPA will have a new chief in place by the time this suit progresses very far.

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EPA proves it’s part of BushCo, rejects California CO2 wavier

The Environmental Protection Agency, using what opponents claim is bad math to downplay the mpg effect of California’s desire to regulate automobile CO2, has officially rejected California’s waiver request. It was the first time EPA had fully denied a California waiver since Congress gave the state permission to seek them in 1967.

EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson claimed it was too piecemeal a solution (duhhh, Congress’ explicit intent of the waiver allowance being ignored) and that the new fuel economy bill (which is actually voluntary for years and which California backers say will be slower to improve mpg than California controlling CO2) should override California’s request.

This, like many other BushCo actions, is so bare-bones political it’s laughable … or would be, if not so serious.

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Gov. Helmethair is also Gov. Smogbreath

Texas Gov. Rick Perry just hasn’t met a polluter or a pollutant he doesn’t like, as his handpicked Texas Commission on Environmental Quality tells the federal Environmental Protection Agency not to make the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex clean up its air, specifically its ozone.

Among Gov. Smogbreath’s more ludicrous arguments is that ozone doesn’t put people in the hospital.

No?

Rick, you ever seen a severe asthma attack?

Rick, you wanna admit that a person in D/FW admitted (likely to Parkland) with a severe asthma attack is probably one of hundreds of thousands of children in this state without any, or adequate, medical insurance, another one of those measurement sticks where Texas ranks near the bottom of the nation?

Here’s the actual TCEQ bullshit:

Starting with Ms. White's letter of April 19, the TCEQ has asserted that Texas’ pattern of asthma hospitalizations – peaking in winter, when ozone levels are low – shows that ozone doesn't send asthmatics to emergency rooms. That would contradict many studies that link ozone to hospital visits, and thus undermine the EPA proposal.

The asthma hospitalization pattern, TCEQ officials said, seems to be a uniquely Texan phenomenon, probably due to the state's combination of weather and emissions sources. Ms. White wrote to the EPA that the pattern was “an example of how Texas is different from the rest of the U.S.” and cited it as “indicating that ozone is not a significant contributor to asthma hospitalizations.”

The TCEQ’s Mr. Shanbacher repeated the argument at an EPA hearing in Houston on Sept. 5. TCEQ executive director Glenn Shankle’s formal comments on the EPA plan, dated Oct. 9, also cited it.

This would be laughable if not despicable. Anyway, here’s its detailed refutation:

Actually, the seasonal pattern has been found everywhere it's been studied – “in countries as environmentally, economically, culturally and socially different as Trinidad, Norway, Hong Kong, the United States, and England,” researchers wrote in a 2001 study published in BMC Health Services Research, a peer-reviewed online journal.

The winter-peak pattern is common knowledge among asthma researchers, said Dr. Eric Crighton, the study’s chief author. His paper cited more than a dozen other studies published since 1984 that found the same seasonal trend.

“Rural, urban – if you go to someplace like northern Ontario, where ozone is certainly not a problem, you'll find this same pattern,” said Dr. Crighton, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Ottawa. “You go to deserts, to unindustrialized [places] – you name it.”

The immediate cause of most winter asthma hospitalizations, he said, is almost certainly viruses, which spread among children when school starts and are then passed on to their families and others. Asthma hospitalizations match school dates so well, Dr. Crighton said, that it's possible to tell when semesters start by looking at admissions.

The winter asthma peak doesn't exonerate ozone at all, he said, because lung damage from long-term exposure to ozone, even in amounts once thought safe, puts asthmatics more at risk from other threats such as viruses.

Let’s throw a little further refutation from the EPA into the mix:

Dr. Henderson, the head of the EPA's ozone review panel, concurred. The panel members knew about the winter-peak asthma pattern when they called for a dramatically tighter ozone standard, she said.

“They took into consideration seasonal differences and co-pollutants and other confounders of the data,” Dr. Henderson said. “So the panel took those things into account in doing the analysis.”

Meanwhile, Texas Big Biz is all too willing to ride Gov. Smogbreath’s coattails, even as far as verbatim quotes of TCEQ statements in its own comments to the EPA:

Language identical to that in Mr. Schanbacher's September testimony later appeared in letters to the EPA from the Texas Association of Business on Oct. 8 and from the Association of Electric Companies of Texas on Oct. 9.

That includes this whopper:

Mr. Schanbacher said in an interview that he was not aware of a winter peak in asthma hospitalizations being found anywhere else. “I think other states don't keep as good hospital records as Texas,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Grover Norquist/Newt Gingritch talking points are also out in force. Perry and Texas Big Biz want the EPA to consider cost in setting new ozone standards, which is specifically not allowable under the Clean Air Act.

If nothing else, Perry, the state agencies and the Big Biz that dance to his tune have shown they’re as blatant and bald-faced in their lying as Gov. Smogbreath’s predecessor.

Who was that? Some guy who claimed he learned bipartisanship in Austin.

His name almost escapes me, but I can never forget an initial … W.

Rick, can I take you to one of TXI’s cement-production smokestacks in Midlothian, tie you to the top in January, and see how long it will take for you and TCEQ to quit talking about this winter asthma anomaly bullshit?

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Good news for controlling auto CO2 emissions

Federal Judge William K. Sessions has ruled that California and 14 other, mainly New England, states have the right to regulate automotive carbon dioxide emissions. Couple that with the Supreme Court ruling this summer than the Environmental Protection Agency has CO2 pollution regulation powers, and I just don’t see automakers having a chance of winning this case on appeal — with one exception noted below.

The suit was in Vermont, which adopted a copy of California’s pioneering CO2 control law. California, by law, has the right to go beyond federal standards on pollution levels, with the granting of an EPA waiver. Other states have the right to adopt California laws when California goes beyond federal standards, but cannot go beyond federal standards on their own.

Here’s the proposed California law:

Under the California law, the emissions reductions for cars in the 2016 model year could be as much as 30 percent or more below current levels.

California regulators have required that by 2012 emissions from cars and light trucks be reduced by 25 percent from 2005 levels. For larger trucks and sport utility vehicles, 18 percent cuts were required.

Sessions specifically cited the SCOTUS ruling; he also rejected the idea that California, and the other states following it, are just trying to regulate gas mileage, which is purely a federal issue.

The one possible reason Sessions could be overturned? University of Vermont law professor Patrick Parenteau noted that California hasn’t gotten its EPA waiver yet (a ruling is planned before the end of this year) and thus Sessions could be overturned on grounds of jumping the gun.

I say that’s tortuous reasoning, as the automakers jumped the gun by bringing the suit in the first place.

Otherwise, Sessions sounds like he made himself well-informed on the technological feasibility of the California requirements; he reject auto industry arguments this could cost as many as 65,000 jobs.

Poppycock; people are going to buy new cars, period.

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SCOTUS Rebukes Bush Administration on CO2 Emissions

In a narrow 5-4 decision (the usual cast of characters – Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia dissenting) the Supreme Court ruled today that the EPA, under the Clean Air Act does indeed have the authority to regulate the amount of CO₂ emissions produced by automobiles. This was a stinging rebuke to Bush administration policy.

There were three questions before the court as they deliberated the case:

_Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?

_Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?

_Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?

On the first two questions they answered in the affirmative. On the last, they ordered the EPA to “re-evaluate the position that it has the discretion to not regulate tailpipe emissions.”

Five justices said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.

"EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Stevens said. He was joined by his liberal colleagues, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, and the court's swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy.

This is a huge step toward coming to grips with the looming threat of global warming.

After all, if you don’t deal with reality, reality will deal with you.

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