Friday, November 29th, 2006 will offer up an interesting commentary on how the judicial branch of the United States views the affects of GHG (Green House Gases) and will state whether or not they can be classified as "air pollutants" and fall under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Arguments are already being prepared by the White House just in case the Supreme Court does decide that GHG's are air pollutants in order to cut any legal reprisals that may affect the administrations stance on Global Warming. Among them are the arguments that this is in fact not a decision to be left up to the Judicial Branch but should rather go through Congress. For an informative short on how this approach works click here. Others argue that even if GHG can be controlled by the EPA that the EPA doesn't in fact have to enforce GHG restrictions.
I for one, will be watching this particular case with some interest. It seems that most public polls are showing the importance of Global Warming in the mind of American citizens as an environmental issue even as the some in the current administration either won't admit that global warming exists, that humans are causing global warming or that the United States would destroy its own economy in order to curb global warming. I suppose I could take a second to point out a main flaw in each argument there, especially the one where it doesn't matter if the US economy collapses if the planet cannot support habitation but instead I will concentrate on the positive. That is that even though the United States is currently the largest producer of GHG the general populace is becoming more and more informed and beginning to raise their voices through their politics, their spending habits and the way we are building.
What will the upcoming weeks hold for our environment? Well, you can stay tuned and watch or you can try to get involved by raising your voice to your congressperson. While they cannot control what the Supreme Court will say, they can start arguing to restrict GHG legislatively.
Resources:
Detroit Free Press
GristMill
No comments:
Post a Comment