In a decision momentous enough to knock the first-quarter fundraising totals of the presidential candidates to the second headline of The Washington Post online yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must reconsider its refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. In its 5-4 ruling, the Court found that the Environmental Protection Agency had an obligation under the Clean Air Act to control cars' emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
This judgment was seen as a strong rebuke to the embattled Bush Administration, which is still reeling from the effects of the U.S. Attorney, Walter Reed and Scooter Libby scandals, as well as the abrupt turnaround of top Bush adviser Matthew Dowd, who stated in a New York Times interview last week that he had become disappointed in President Bush's leadership. More than that, however, the verdict is an important step in the fight against global warming.
President Bush's argument has been that regulation of emissions would place undue strain on the U.S. auto industry and would damage the American economy. This point, though sometimes conceded as correct in the short term, ignores the more long-term view that the U.S. auto industry will be further harmed when global warming causes the sea level to rise, the hurricanes and tsunamis to hit, and all of the Americans and their automobiles to drown at the bottom of the ocean that has washed in over what used to be Peoria, Ill.
Regardless of your position on global warming, pollution is unambiguously, undeniably, unequivocally bad. As former Vice President Al Gore pointed out in rather powerful terms in a U.S. Senate hearing on the topic two weeks ago, "when the crib is on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame-retardant." Vivid, bewildering language, perhaps, but the message is simple: We know enough about the effects of our pollutants to know that something can and should be done, and soon.
Contrary to assertions by the Bush administration, it is entirely possible that innovation in the fields of alternative energy and fuel efficiency could create jobs and help the American economy. Gas prices have skyrocketed in the last few years, and the countries that control the majority of the world's oil supply - countries like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia - are not necessarily friendly or stable trading partners. In addition, the fact that fossil fuels are not a renewable resource should send nations scrambling to be ahead of the curve when the supply runs out.
Yesterday's ruling did not tell the American public anything it did not already know; most Americans are aware that global warming is an important and pressing issue. Instead, it simply reinforced the apparently rather novel idea that the Environmental Protection Agency should devote some of its time to actually protecting the environment. Though it was against the will of the president, John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter have forced the Bush Administration to do something good for America, and for that they should be applauded.
