Court Rules 5-4 in
Landmark Decision
Ann Arbor, Michigan —In a landmark decision in one of
the most important environmental cases ever heard by the Supreme Court, the
Court ruled today that the Clean Air Act gives the U.S. EPA the authority to
regulate carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants from cars.
“This
decision is a major turning point in our nation’s fight to protect future
generations from global warming. For six
years, the Bush administration has toed the oil, coal, and auto industry line
on global warming, but this is their day of reckoning,” said Abby Rubley, Field
Director for Environment Michigan. “We
can now finally start to put the many solutions we have at our finger tips to
use in fighting global warming,” Rubley continued.
U.S.
PIRG, the federal advocacy office for Environment Michigan, is a petitioner in
the case.
The Court ordered the U.S. EPA to reconsider its
decision not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars. In the meantime, the ruling will have major
implications for rules to reduce global warming pollution from cars in California and nine
other states. Under the Clean Air Act, states
may adopt California’s
tailpipe emissions standards in lieu of minimum federal standards. Nine states have adopted California’s standards to reduce fleet-wide
global warming emissions from new vehicles by 25 percent in model year 2009,
rising to 30 percent in model year 2016.
U.S. PIRG
is a petitioner in the case, along with a coalition of states, cities, and
environmental organizations. For a
complete list of the petitioners and other documents related to the case, go to
www.cleancarscampaign.org and
click on “Court Action.”
###
Environment Michigan
- a statewide, citizen-based, non-profit, non-partisan environmental advocacy
organization - is the new home of PIRGIM’s environmental work. www.environmentmichigan.org
