"The text of the Clean Air Act and robust congressional debates at the time of its enactment bely EPA's central justification for repealing the endangerment finding and the greenhouse gas emission standards for motor vehicles-that the Clean Air Act of 1970 was concerned only with local and regional pollutants. It wasn't. But EPA's repeal contains even more flaws. In particular, the agency relies on three key Supreme Court climate change cases to support its action but mischaracterizes each of them."
"Most significantly, EPA mangles Massachusetts v. EPA, the 2007 case in which the Supreme Court decided that greenhouse gases are "air pollutants" for the purposes of the Clean Air Act. According to EPA, that case involved an interpretation of the statute's general definition of "air pollutant" and was not a decision specific to the law's section 202(a)(1), which governs the regulation of motor-vehicle emissions."
The Environmental Protection Agency repealed the endangerment finding that greenhouse gases harm public health or welfare, a prerequisite for regulating those pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The statutory text and contemporary congressional debates demonstrate that the 1970 Act was not limited to local or regional pollutants. The repeal relies on three Supreme Court climate decisions but misstates each. The agency's characterization of Massachusetts v. EPA is incorrect because the Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether section 202(a)(1) authorized regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from motor vehicles.
Read at Slate Magazine
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