Supreme Court examines global warming lawsuit

New York Times : On Tuesday the US Supreme Court examined the issue of who should be responsible for regulating carbon emissions. Six states (California, Connecticut, Iowa, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) and New York City brought a lawsuit against five power companies that are responsible for a quarter of carbon-dioxide emissions by utilities in the nation. The suit said the courts should step in to protect the states from a “public nuisance” created by the defendants. The court countered that regulating greenhouse-gas emissions is more the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency. Since the lawsuit was filed in 2004, the legal and political landscapes have changed—the EPA under the Bush administration took the view that the Clean Air Act did not permit it to issue regulations addressing climate change, while in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority to regulate some emissions. Nevertheless, the New York solicitor general, Barbara D. Underwood, urged the court “to keep the federal courts open to states exercising their historic power to protect their land and their citizens from air pollution emitted in other states.”