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Massachusetts v. EPA

2007 United States Supreme Court case From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), is a 5–4 U.S. Supreme Court case in which Massachusetts, along with eleven other states and several cities of the United States, represented by James Milkey, brought suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) represented by Gregory G. Garre to force the federal agency to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) that pollute the environment and contribute to climate change.

Quick facts Argued November 29, 2006 Decided April 2, 2007, Full case name ...

Under the Clean Air Act, Massachusetts argued that the Environmental Protection Agency was required by law to regulate "any air pollutant" which could "endanger public health or welfare." The EPA denied the petition, claiming that federal law does not authorize the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants. This led to the U.S. regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

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Background

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In 1997 the United States Senate unanimously rejected the Kyoto Protocol because it did not set mandatory reduction targets for heavily polluting "developing" countries such as India and China.[1] In 1999, a group of private organizations filed a rulemaking petition asking the EPA to regulate "greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles under §202 of the Clean Air Act."

There were hopes that the incoming Bush Administration would direct the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. However, a few months into his first term in office, Bush clarified his view that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. [2][3][4][5]

The EPA requested public comment on the rulemaking petition in 2001. The EPA denied the petition in 2003. The agency gave the following two reasons for its decision:[6]

  1. The EPA lacked authority under the CAA to regulate carbon dioxide for climate change purposes.
  2. Even if the EPA did have such authority, it would exercise its discretion to decline as a matter of policy.

Appeals court

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided on September 13, 2005, to uphold the decision of the EPA.[7]

The lower court was sharply divided on whether the petitioners had "standing", a personalized injury creating a right to claim remedial action from the government through the courts (i.e., rather than to seek favorable action by pressing for supportive legislation). Each of the three judges wrote a separate opinion. Judge David S. Tatel, dissenting, said the loss of shore land caused by climate change "satisfied each element of Article III standing—injury, causation, and redressability".[8]

Parties

The petitioners were the states of California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, the cities of New York, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., the territory of American Samoa, and the organizations Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Advocates, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Center for Technology Assessment, National Environmental Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. James Milkey of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office represented the petitioners in oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.[9]

Respondents were the Environmental Protection Agency, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, National Automobile Dealers Association, Engine Manufacturers Association, Truck Manufacturers Association, CO2 Litigation Group, Utility Air Regulatory Group, and the states of Michigan, Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah.

Supreme Court

On June 26, 2006, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to answer:[10][11]

  1. Does the Clean Air Act give the EPA authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases?
  2. Whether the EPA Administrator may decline to issue emission standards for motor vehicles on the basis of policy considerations not enumerated in section 202(a)(1).

Standing was a threshold issue that had divided the D.C. Circuit judges. It was extensively briefed by both parties and amici.[12]

Arguments

Petitioners

The petitioners asserted that the EPA Administrator's decision not to cap carbon dioxide emissions was an abuse of discretion. They argued that scientific uncertainty is not a valid basis for the EPA Administrator to decline to regulate. The question before the Supreme Court "was not whether the causation is true or untrue" but whether it is a valid reason for the Administrator to not regulate a pollutant. If they prevailed on this point, then the EPA would not have the discretion to decline to regulate emissions standards, provided the statutory definition of the CAA was held to include carbon dioxide.[13]: 6  Although petitioners made a strategic decision to frame the case as an administrative law case, the dissenting justices were skeptical. [14][13]: 8 

Petitioners felt the Section 202 definition of air pollutant as "any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive...substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air" was a strong argument for them. They argued that the "the statutory text compelled a conclusion that EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases and that its reasons for saying it could decline to regulate even if it had the authority to do so flouted the statutory language." Thus, the Supreme Court considered whether the reasons given by the EPA were valid reasons within the CAA statute for the EPA Administrator to decide not to regulate carbon dioxide.[13]: 9 

EPA

The EPA argued that carbon dioxide is not an "air pollutant" covered by §202(a)(1). The agency gave several reasons for this reading of the statute:

  1. Congress has never enacted binding emissions limits to "combat global warming"
  2. The Supreme Court decided in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. that "tobacco's unique political history" invalidated the Food and Drug Administration's attempt to assert jurisdiction over an "industry constituting a significant portion of the American economy." The EPA concluded that climate change also had a "political history" and EPA action to regulate air pollutants that contribute to climate change would have a greater economic impact than regulating tobacco.
  3. The agency found that the only reasonable method of reducing emissions would be improving fuel economy, which the EPA argued was the responsibility of the Department of Transporation, and EPA regulation would be conflicting or superfluous.

The EPA also relied on several policy judgments including potential conflict with the President's "comprehensive approach". One of several reasons that the EPA Administrator declined to regulate carbon dioxide as a matter of discretion was uncertainty about whether man-made carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming. [15]

Opinion of the Court

First, the petitioners were found to have standing.[16] Quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, the Court says the procedural right created by 42 U.S.C. § 7607(1) can be asserted "without meeting all the normal standards for redressability and immediacy".[17][18]

Justice Stevens reasoned that the states had a particularly strong interest in the standing analysis.[19] The majority cited Justice Holmes' opinion in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co. (1907):

"This is a suit by a State for an injury to it in its capacity of quasi-sovereign. In that capacity the State has an interest independent of and behind the titles of its citizens, in all the earth and air within its domain. It has the last word as to whether its mountains shall be stripped of their forests and its inhabitants shall breathe pure air."[20]

The Court concludes that Massachusetts is entitled to "special solicitude" in the standing analysis because it has "quasi-sovereign interests" and a "concomitant procedural right".

On the merits, the Court held that 42 U.S.C. § 7521(a)(1) gives the EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases:

"The 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."

The majority opinion commented that "greenhouse gases fit well within the CAA's capacious definition of air pollutant."[21]

On the second merits question, the Court found the agency's rationale for not regulating to be inadequate and required the agency to articulate a reasonable basis for their decision related to whether an air pollutant "cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare".[22] The Court distinguishes Heckler v. Chaney, which held that refusal to initiate an enforcement action was presumed to be discretionary by law, from the EPA's refusal to promulgate a rule. The divided Court said the EPA's discretion "does not extend to the refusal to execute domestic laws".[23][24]

Finally, the Court remanded the case to the EPA, requiring the agency to review its contention that it has discretion in regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Roberts' dissent

Chief Justice Roberts authored a dissenting opinion. First, the dissent condemns the majority's "special solicitude" conferred to Massachusetts as having no basis in Supreme Court cases dealing with standing. The dissent compares the majority opinion to "the previous high-water mark of diluted standing requirements," United States v. SCRAP (1973). Roberts then argues that the record supports an alternate explanation for the loss of land other than rising sea levels caused by climate change.[25] The dissent also finds that even if there is a possibility that the state may lose some land because of global warming, the effect of obliging the EPA to enforce automobile emissions is hypothetical at best. According to Roberts, there is not a traceable causal connection between the EPA's refusal to enforce emission standards and petitioners' injuries. Finally, the dissent maintains that redressability of the injuries is even more problematic given that countries such as India and China are responsible for the majority of the greenhouse-gas emissions. The Chief Justice concludes by accusing the majority of lending the Court as a convenient forum for policy debate and of transgressing the limited role afforded to the Supreme Court by the U.S. Constitution.[26]

Scalia's dissent

First, Justice Scalia found that the Court has no jurisdiction to decide the case because petitioners lack standing, which would have ended the inquiry. However, since the majority saw fit to find standing, his dissent continued.

The main question is, "Does anything require the Administrator to make a 'judgment' whenever a petition for rulemaking is filed?" Justice Scalia sees the Court's answer to this unequivocally as yes, but with no authority to back it. He backs this assertion by explaining that the "statute says nothing at all about the reasons for which the Administrator may defer making a judgment"—the permissible reasons for deciding not to grapple with the issue at the present time. Scalia saw no basis in law for the Court's imposed limitation.

In response to the Court's statement that, "If the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it precludes EPA from making a reasoned judgment as to whether greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, EPA must say so," Scalia responded that EPA has done precisely that, in the form of the National Research Council panel that researched climate-change science.

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Subsequent developments

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Environmental groups saw the decision as a victory against the Bush administration's unpopular climate change policy.[27] The decision was seen as a stepping stone to the Clean Power Plan and Paris Agreement.[14][28]

On remand, EPA found that six greenhouse gases "in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare." On February 16, 2010, the states of Alabama, Texas, and Virginia and several other parties sought judicial review of EPA's determination in the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. On June 26, 2012, the court issued an opinion which dismissed the challenges to the EPA's endangerment finding and the related GHG regulations.[29] The three-judge panel unanimously upheld the EPA's central finding that GHG such as carbon dioxide endanger public health and were likely responsible for the global warming experienced over the past half century.

A later Supreme Court case in 2022, West Virginia v. EPA, found that the EPA had taken undue authority within the major questions doctrine on regulation of emissions and promoting alternate forms of energy for power plants in the Clean Power Plan. In response, part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 includes language to address the Court's decision in West Virginia, and codified the findings in Massachusetts in that carbon dioxide among several other greenhouse gases were within the EPA's remit to regulate as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.[30]

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See also

Notes

Further reading

External links

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