Lawsuit Represents Step Backward for Texas

(Austin – Feb.16, 2010) Today Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples announced the filing of a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health. The following statements are made by Environmental Defense Fund Texas Regional Director Jim Marston:

“The lawsuit filed by Governor Perry is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. vs. Massachusetts. Their action evokes memories of a sad time in Texas history from the ’50s, when Texas politicians sought to nullify decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only is it legally unsound, it puts Texas on the side of the 1950s economy, against the clean energy economy of the future.”

Endangerment Determination Background:

EPA Responding to the U.S. Supreme Court: In 2007, the high court rejected as contrary to law the Bush Administration’s “laundry list of reasons not to regulate” greenhouse gases under the federal Clean Air Act, found that EPA could not refuse to regulate greenhouse gases due to policy predilections, and held that the “statutory question is whether sufficient information exists to make an endangerment finding.” EPA’s December 2009 endangerment finding is in direct response to the holding of the nation’s highest court.

A Voluminous Response to Public Comments: Some of the challengers have asserted that EPA’s response to public comments was meager. In fact, EPA’s action was accompanied with 11 volumes responding to public comments through more than 650 pages of detailed analysis. See www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html

An Extensive Body of Peer Reviewed Science Showing Present and Future Harm: Some of the challengers have claimed that the scientific underpinning for EPA’s action is weak. In fact, EPA’s decision is based on a two hundred page synthesis of major scientific assessments by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Research Council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, CNA Corporation, and others. The EPA “Technical Support Document for the Findings” is available here: www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html

A Familiar Line of Attorneys: The nation has previously seen long lines of attorneys form to challenge implementation of basic clean air protections. When EPA established health-based national air quality standards for particulate pollution and ozone in 1997, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and numerous trade associations filed legal challenges including the national association of manufacturers, farm interests, cement makers, auto manufacturers, the pulp and paper mill industry, petroleum refiners, iron and steel firms, home builders, mining interests, and numerous power companies. In 2001, Justice Scalia wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in rejecting claims that EPA had acted contrary to law in establishing the controversial clean air standards. Today, millions of Americans have been protected with healthier air and the science is only more compelling in documenting the harm from particulate and ozone pollution.

Decade of Delay, Rising Pollution, High Costs: Since the original citizen petition in 1999 requested EPA action to address greenhouse gases, vital progress has been delayed by previous government officials who declined to carry out the law and to follow the science. Since 1999, the nation has discharged about 70 billion tons of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and global carbon dioxide concentrations have risen to 385 parts per million. Delays in making progress translate into costly climate-related impacts and more expensive, difficult solutions to correct for lost time.

Professing a Preference for New Legislative Solutions? For those who oppose EPA’s action to carry out the law consistent with the science while publicly professing support for new legislation, let’s ask which specific legislation they support and what steps they have taken to help enact protective legislative solutions.