EPA controls auto emissions

[angus]

Today the Supreme Court ordered the federal government to consider regulating carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.  In a 5-4 decision, they basically said that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars. 

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?

The court said yes to the first two questions.  On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions.  The court said the EPA has so far provided a "laundry list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.  The majority said the EPA must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.

Dissenting were Scalia, Alito, Roberts, and Thomas.  The lawsuit was filed by 12 states and 13 environmental groups that had grown frustrated by the Bush administration's inaction on global warming, so, in a sense, this amounts to criticism of the Bush policy on global warming.  (CNN, WaPo, and NYT all use the word "rebuke" in their stories on this decision.)  All the 2008 candidates so far, Democrat and Republican, are even the business community, are much further along on this than the Bush administration is.  I was wondering how many of you agree with this decision by the Supreme Court.

The case is Massachusetts v. EPA, 05-1120, if you're interested in learning more.

[angus]

good comments all.  I haven't decided, but have viewed the results and see that with a sample of about ten voters, it's about 2-to-1 in agreement.  I like the fact that the federal government is thinking seriously about the effect of auto emissions on global climate change.  And I'm glad they stand up to Bush on this.  But I'm bothered by the legality here.  As much as I fear global warming, and even though I'm a dues-paying member of the Sierra Club, and even though I always talk about infrared absorption every tuesday and thursday at 9:30 (I just finished a soliloquy on fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, using CO2 as the example, no doubt), I still can't get with the majority's approach here.  In fact, what scalia said resonates most with me, that the suing parties' right to be in court is the fundamental issue here.  I think too often we let our ideology get in the way of our critical thinking.  The Right does that, and so does The Left.  In this case, my kneejerk reaction was, "yay, clean air wins a case in the Roberts court!"  But that's not critical thinking.  As much as I would like the court to give us guidelines for how to be responsible stewards of the earth, I'm not sure the court has that authority.  And Scalia seems to recognize that.  So my reaction is mixed.  I just wondered if others felt this way.  Green thinking is good.  Having a court unconstitutionally force Green thinking down our throats isn't good.  That sort of thing.

[angus]

okay, now I have to go read your link.

whoa, 66 pages.

I'll get back to you.


edit:  ah, Roberts is only pages 39-54 and Scalia's only pages 54-66.  Jeezus, these windbags can pile it on.  Ugly mixed metaphor.  Anyway, I see the pieces.  He cites cases going back to 1907, mostly to show that the state shouldn't ask for special solicitude.  Then, after a lengthy littany, he says that in any case they don't have a good case.  Takes about three pages to say that.  He then introduces another longwinded diatribe about you have to show that the injury came from the lack of a new motor vehicle law by saying, oh, hey anyway, a petitioner can't expect anyone to really put the coast and air back like that, the way it was, presto, so you gotta be careful about this.  It's all very clever.  Brilliant, maybe, I don't know.  Verbose, for sure.  And I always learn a few new Latin words reading this stuff.  Oh, now I see it.  He loves that acronym SCRAP.  It appears nine times.  Overall Roberts makes a decent case and points out "the proper and properly limited role of the courts in a democratic society."  He respectfully dissents, and says why basically.  He takes many paragraphs to do it, though.

See, now by that time you dread reading Scalia.  It took at least five minutes to read Roberts, and I'm sober.  So of course you're gonna think Scalia's full of sh**t, to give yourself not to read it seriously.  This is why you grade everybody's page one, then everybody's page two, and so on.  And you have to take a break.  I'm going to rest, or have a drink before I read Scalia.  I'll get back to you on his opinion.

[angus]

Alright, so Scalia starts right away saying that at the heart of this case is the Clean Air Act, and he quotes the relevant scripture from the act.  Good.  He also says much of what Roberts says, in different words.  He comments that Congress knows how to "make private action force an agency's hand."  Then he goes on to discuss the merits of the case.  I suppose it's not as compelling, and therefore comes across as weaker, but I do like what he reminds people:  "The Court's alarm over global warming may or may not be justified, but it ought not to distort the outcome of this litigation."  In fact, I think the court's alarm is justified, but I wholeheartedly agree that the court has "no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgement of the responsible agency."  That's a perfect way of saying what I think.  I stand by my comments about Scalia, but I agree with your assessment that Roberts wrote his dissent in a way that probably gives lawyers a bigger hard-on.

I guess I should go on and read pages 1 through 38 (the bench opinion) now, and find out what was in their heads.  Will get back to you on that.

[angus]

Okay, well I have read enough of Justice Stevens' opinion to decide whether I agree with the court's decision, and I don't, so I'll vote NO in this poll.  He refers to the phenomenon of global climate change.  Talks about the 420 thousand year ice-core record.  He says the "wait and see" attitude may mean waiting till it's too late to do anything about global warming.  Now, the thing is, I agree that there is a relationship between carbon dioxide levels and mean global temperature.  And I agree that we may need public policy changes to address global climate change.  And those are all relevant and important and intelligent points if you are a policy advisor for the president or if you are a legislator.  That is, global climate change is real, and it is affected by carbon dioxide and water vapor and methane molecules and all the so-called "greenhouse" gases.  But these guys aren't legislators.  They aren't policy makers.  As much as I'd like for the Congress or the UN to address this important issue, I don't think it's fair to say, "Well, I'm really a judge charged with interpreting the law, but since Congress is too pig-headed to make a good law, I"ll legislate from the bench."

You know, we used to talk about this stuff all the time.  That is, until the Iraq war superceded all other considerations, the most important factor in presidential selection among the intelligencia was the long-term effect of federal judgeship appointments, so I totally disagree with the points that TheFactor made in his wise and considered post.  I can't just forget about the unconstitutionality of legislating from the bench just because things like imperialism and costly military projects are more sexy and therefore more interesting to talk about.  This court case is about the best example I have ever seen of the Supreme Court doing something I strongly feel should be done, but me getting pissed off about it because it was the wrong body (the judiciary rather than the legislature) doing it.

[angus]

I'm just wondering how this is different than a fuel efficiency standard. Gasoline contains a fixed amount of carbon per gallon. When you burn it you will get 3.67 lbs of CO2 per pound of carbon. So limiting CO2 will do the same thing as limiting the amount of fuel consumed.

Not to pick, but something seems wrong here.  First, gasoline does not contain a fixed amount of carbon per gallon, since different grades of fuel and different brands of fuel have different chemical constiuents.  But, for the sake of argument, lets assume gasoline is mostly octane, C8H18, since that's a major component of gasoline.  I just did a quick rough estimate.  If there are 3.785 liters in one gallon, and we assume a density of 0.711 kilograms per liter, and use 114.23 grams per mole for the molar mass of octane, we see that one gallon of octane is about 23 moles.  (you can argue a slightly different density, since I used that at 298 Kelvins, but it won't make a big difference.)  Now, if I did this right, we can see that one mole of octane is stoichiometrically equivalent to eight moles of carbon dioxide in the complete combustion reaction:

C3H8  +  12.5 O2  ==>  8 CO2  +  H2O.

So 23 moles of octane yield 188 moles of carbon dioxide.  Using 44 g/mol as the molar mass, this is about 8.292 kilograms of carbon dioxide produced per gallon of gasoline consumed at 298K.  I think that's more like 18 pounds. 

What did I screw up?  I make little mistakes all the time--luckily Gabu usually catches me here, and I always have at least one student in classes that's not stoned or asleep--but they're not here and Gabu isn't logged on, so tell me how you get 3.67 pounds.  Or maybe we're doing different calculations.  I guess you're saying that one mole of the element carbon weighs 12 grams, and since one mole of co2 weighs 44 grams, that's a ratio of 12:44, which reduces to 1:3.67.  Okay, yeah, I got it.

Well, anyway, yeah, you don't necessarily want to limit the amount of fuel used, but rather limit the amount of infrared absorbing gases (co2, h2o, methane, and the other so-called "greenhouse" gases) produced.  But in any case, my only point is that such limitations ought to be based on law commonly agreed upon by the people, not by the fiat of nine fat old bastards appointed for life.  I'm not arguing for or against stricter standards here, only that it's a legislative prerogative, not a judicicial one.