US court upholds Obama’s greenhouse gas regulations

A US appeals court has upheld the first-ever rules governing greenhouse gases, clearing a path for sweeping regulations affecting vehicles, coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities.

Handing a victory to the Obama administration, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and the decision to set limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were “neither arbitrary nor capricious”.

The ruling, which addresses four separate lawsuits, upholds the underpinnings of the Obama administration’s push to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and is a rebuke to a major push by heavy industries including electric utilities, coal miners and states like Texas to block the EPA’s path.

In the 82-page ruling, the three-judge panel also found that the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide regulations is “unambiguously correct”.

The court said it lacked jurisdiction to review the timing and scope of greenhouse gas rules that affect stationary sources like new coal-burning power plants and other large industrial sources.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the court found the agency “followed both the science and the law in taking common sense, reasonable actions to address the very real threat of climate change by limiting greenhouse gas pollution from the largest sources”.

“EPA’s massive and complicated regulatory barrage will continue to punish job creators and further undermine our economy,” countered Sen James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican and long-time critic of the EPA’s regulations.

The ruling clears the way for the EPA to proceed with first-ever rules limiting carbon dioxide emissions from newly built power plants, and to move forward with new vehicle emission standards this summer.

“These rulings clear the way for EPA to keep moving forward under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon pollution from motor vehicles, new power plants, and other big industrial sources,” said David Doniger, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Reuters