US States Take Agency to Court Over Emissions Standards

Exactly one year after the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency must make a decision on whether it can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, a group of states and pressure groups are to return to the courts in an attempt to force the agency to comply with the ruling.

Critics of the agency say that it has embarked on a policy of "obfuscation and deception" to avoid having to take action on global warming. A return to the courts, they argue, is the only way that the agency will stop defying the Supreme Court.

"The EPA's failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty," Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

Massachusetts brought the original case before the Supreme Court, joined by 17 other states and a variety of municipal authorities and environmental groups, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

Others joining the action ranged from former secretary of state Madeleine Albright to the Aspen Ski Company.

But a spokesman for the agency argued that the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling did not include a deadline, and that the agency would include its decision on vehicle greenhouse gases emissions in a broader review of greenhouse gases.

"We want to set a good foundation to build a strong climate policy of potential regulation and laws we can work toward and actually see some success," EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said.

The EPA announced last week that it would open a period of public consultation to decide how best to limit emissions.

But the agency's argument that a ruling on motor vehicle emissions alone would merely create confusion was derided by David Bookbinder of the environmental group the Sierra Club, who argued that the agency had adopted a strategy devised by a conservative think tank.

"While EPA has spent seven years finding new and creative ways to delay, obfuscate, deceive, block action in the states, and otherwise refuse to take action on global warming, it seems it took them only a week to do what was demanded by the Heritage Foundation and other special interests," he said.

"This latest provocation, combined with a nearly decade-long trail of broken promises from President Bush on down the line, left us with no other choice but to take EPA back to Court."

The petition asks the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require the EPA to act within 60 days.

The court action comes as the EPA weathers ongoing criticism of its director Stephen Johnson, who was assailed for his decision in December to deny California the right to mandate a 30% reduction in vehicle emissions. That decision was criticized by officials within his own agency.

The journal Nature opined that he had acted in, "reckless disregard for law, science or the agency's own rules - or, it seems, the anguished protests of his own subordinates."

Critics of the agency's inaction in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling argue that it is politically motivated, with Johnson hoping to hand the problem off to the next administration.