Source: http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/549/05-1120/opinion.html
Timestamp: 2013-12-08 13:53:10
Document Index: 250740432

Matched Legal Cases: ['§202', '§202', '§3', '§2901', '§1102', '§1103', '§1103', '§1102', 'Art. 2', '§202', '§202']

Massachusetts v. EPA - 05-1120 (2007) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
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Massachusetts v. EPA - 05-1120 (2007)
In response, EPA, supported by 10 intervening States[Footnote 5] and six trade associations,[Footnote 6] correctly argued that we may not address those two questions unless at least one petitioner has standing to invoke our jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution. Notwithstanding the serious character of that jurisdictional argument and the absence of any conflicting decisions construing §202(a)(1), the unusual importance of the underlying issue persuaded us to grant the writ. 548 U. S. __ (2006).
“The [EPA] Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare … .”[Footnote 7]
When Congress enacted these provisions, the study of climate change was in its infancy.[Footnote 8] In 1959, shortly after the U. S. Weather Bureau began monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, an observatory in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, recorded a mean level of 316 parts per million. This was well above the highest carbon dioxide concentration—no more than 300 parts per million—revealed in the 420,000-year-old ice-core record.[Footnote 9] By the time Congress drafted §202(a)(1) in 1970, carbon dioxide levels had reached 325 parts per million.[Footnote 10]
In the late 1970’s, the Federal Government began devoting serious attention to the possibility that carbon dioxide emissions associated with human activity could provoke climate change. In 1978, Congress enacted the National Climate Program Act, 92 Stat. 601, which required the President to establish a program to “assist the Nation and the world to understand and respond to natural and man-induced climate processes and their implications,” id., §3. President Carter, in turn, asked the National Research Council, the working arm of the National Academy of Sciences, to investigate the subject. The Council’s response was unequivocal: “If carbon dioxide continues to increase, the study group finds no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible… . A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.”[Footnote 11]
Congress next addressed the issue in 1987, when it enacted the Global Climate Protection Act, Title XI of Pub. L. 100–204, 101 Stat. 1407, note following 15 U. S. C. §2901. Finding that “manmade pollution—the release of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and other trace gases into the atmosphere—may be producing a long-term and substantial increase in the average temperature on Earth,” §1102(1), 101 Stat. 1408, Congress directed EPA to propose to Congress a “coordinated national policy on global climate change,” §1103(b), and ordered the Secretary of State to work “through the channels of multilateral diplomacy” and coordinate diplomatic efforts to combat global warming, §1103(c). Congress emphasized that “ongoing pollution and deforestation may be contributing now to an irreversible process” and that “[n]ecessary actions must be identified and implemented in time to protect the climate.” §1102(4).
Meanwhile, the scientific understanding of climate change progressed. In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a multinational scientific body organized under the auspices of the United Nations, published its first comprehensive report on the topic. Drawing on expert opinions from across the globe, the IPCC concluded that “emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of … greenhouse gases [which] will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.”[Footnote 12]
Responding to the IPCC report, the United Nations convened the “Earth Summit” in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The first President Bush attended and signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a nonbinding agreement among 154 nations to reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for the purpose of “prevent[ing] dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-induced] interference with the [Earth’s] climate system.”[Footnote 13] S. Treaty Doc. No. 102–38, Art. 2, p. 5 (1992). The Senate unanimously ratified the treaty.
Some five years later—after the IPCC issued a second comprehensive report in 1995 concluding that “[t]he balance of evidence suggests there is a discernible human influence on global climate”[Footnote 14]—the UNFCCC signatories met in Kyoto, Japan, and adopted a protocol that assigned mandatory targets for industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Because those targets did not apply to developing and heavily polluting nations such as China and India, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution expressing its sense that the United States should not enter into the Kyoto Protocol. See S. Res. 98, 105th Cong., 1st Sess. (July 25, 1997) (as passed). President Clinton did not submit the protocol to the Senate for ratification.
On October 20, 1999, a group of 19 private organizations[Footnote 15] filed a rulemaking petition asking EPA to regulate “greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles under §202 of the Clean Air Act.” App. 5. Petitioners maintained that 1998 was the “warmest year on record”; that carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are “heat trapping greenhouse gases”; that greenhouse gas emissions have significantly accelerated climate change; and that the IPCC’s 1995 report warned that “carbon dioxide remains the most important contributor to [man-made] forcing of climate change.” Id., at 13 (internal quotation marks omitted). The petition further alleged that climate change will have serious adverse effects on human health and the environment. Id., at 22–35. As to EPA’s statutory authority, the petition observed that the agency itself had already confirmed that it had the power to regulate carbon dioxide. See id., at 18, n. 21. In 1998, Jonathan Z. Cannon, then EPA’s General Counsel, prepared a legal opinion concluding that “CO2 emissions are within the scope of EPA’s authority to regulate,” even as he recognized that EPA had so far declined to exercise that authority. Id., at 54 (memorandum to Carol M. Browner, Administrator (Apr. 10, 1998) (hereinafter Cannon memorandum)). Cannon’s successor, Gary S. Guzy, reiterated that opinion before a congressional committee just two weeks before the rulemaking petition was filed. See id., at 61.
Fifteen months after the petition’s submission, EPA requested public comment on “all the issues raised in [the] petition,” adding a “particular” request for comments on “any scientific, technical, legal, economic or other aspect of these issues that may be relevant to EPA’s consideration of this petition.” 66 Fed. Reg. 7486, 7487 (2001). EPA received more than 50,000 comments over the next five months. See 68 Fed. Reg. 52924 (2003).
EPA stated that it was “urged on in this view” by this Court’s decision in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120 (2000). In that case, relying on “tobacco[’s] unique political history,” id., at 159, we invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s reliance on its general authority to regulate drugs as a basis for asserting jurisdiction over an “industry constituting a significant portion of the American economy,” ibid.
Petitioners, now joined by intervenor States and local governments, sought review of EPA’s order in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[Footnote 16] Although each of the three judges on the panel wrote a separate opinion, two judges agreed “that the EPA Administrator properly exercised his discretion under §202(a)(1) in denying the petition for rule making.” 415 F. 3d 50, 58 (2005). The court therefore denied the petition for review.
Judge Sentelle wrote separately because he believed petitioners failed to “demonstrat[e] the element of injury necessary to establish standing under Article III.” Id., at 59 (opinion dissenting in part and concurring in judgment). In his view, they had alleged that global warming is “harmful to humanity at large,” but could not allege “particularized injuries” to themselves. Id., at 60 (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 562 (1992)). While he dissented on standing, however, he accepted the contrary view as the law of the case and joined Judge Randolph’s judgment on the merits as the closest to that which he preferred. 415 F. 3d, at 60–61.
Judge Tatel dissented. Emphasizing that EPA nowhere challenged the factual basis of petitioners’ affidavits, id., at 66, he concluded that at least Massachusetts had “satisfied each element of Article III standing—injury, causation, and redressability,” id., at 64. In Judge Tatel’s view, the “ ‘substantial probability,’ ” id., at 66, that projected rises in sea level would lead to serious loss of coastal property was a “far cry” from the kind of generalized harm insufficient to ground Article III jurisdiction. Id., at 65. He found that petitioners’ affidavits more than adequately supported the conclusion that EPA’s failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions contributed to the sea level changes that threatened Massachusetts’ coastal property. Ibid. As to redressability, he observed that one of petitioners’ experts, a former EPA climatologist, stated that “ ‘[a]chievable reductions in emissions of CO2 and other [greenhouse gases] from U. S. motor vehicles would … delay and moderate many of the adverse impacts of global warming.’ ” Ibid. (quoting declaration of Michael MacCracken, former Executive Director, U. S. Global Change Research Program ¶5(e) (hereinafter MacCracken Decl.), available in 2 Petitioners’ Standing Appendix in No. 03–1361, etc., (CADC), p. 209 (Stdg. App.)). He further noted that the one-time director of EPA’s motor-vehicle pollution control efforts stated in an affidavit that enforceable emission standards would lead to the development of new technologies that “ ‘would gradually be mandated by other countries around the world.’ ” 415 F. 3d, at 66 (quoting declaration of Michael Walsh ¶¶7–8, 10, Stdg. App. 309–310, 311). On the merits, Judge Tatel explained at length wh