It was one year ago yesterday that the Supreme Court made the landmark declaration in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Environmental Protection Agency had a responsibility to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions as pollutants. You may have noticed that in that time, they've done nothing of the sort, and continue to actively work against states have have tried to do so. The plan of action they did put forth was pretty much authored by industry and the folks at the Heritage Foundation.
Now more than a dozen cities and states, along with a coalition of environmental groups, are beginning legal proceedings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to force the Environmental Protection Agency to stop dragging their feet, after threatening for the past few months that they would. David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for Sierra Club, which was one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court case, put out a statement on the new legal challenge yesterday and called for EPA administrator Stephen Johnson's head:
EPA threw the kitchen sink at the Supreme Court, lost, and has now proved that they're willing to ignore even the highest court in the land in order to protect their friends in industry. While this administration has done everything possible to make a mockery of the rule of law in this country, it's still stunning that they refuse to yield even to the High Court.
It's unfortunate that Stephen Johnson has chosen to sacrifice his three decades at EPA in order to help rearrange the deck chairs as this administration sinks further into irrelevance. If he is unwilling or unable to stand up and do to what the law--and now the Supreme Court--has ordered him to do, he should step aside in favor of someone who is.
Yet another reason to count down the days until the we can put the "protection" back in EPA.
--Kate Sheppard
