Supreme Court Rebukes Bush Administration Inaction on Global Warming
For Immediate Release:
April 5, 2007
For More Information:
Nicole Allen, WashPIRG, 203 216 7112, nicole@washpirgstudents.org
Supreme Court Rebukes Bush Administration Inaction on Global Warming
In
a landmark decision in one of the most important environmental cases
ever heard by the Supreme Court, the Court ruled today that the Clean
Air Act gives the U.S. EPA the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and
other global warming pollutants from cars.
The Court ordered the
U.S. EPA to reconsider its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide
emissions from cars. In the meantime, the ruling will have major
implications for rules to reduce global warming pollution from cars in
California, and nine other states including Washington. Under the
Clean Air Act, states may adopt California’s tailpipe emissions
standards in lieu of minimum federal standards. Washington adopted
California’s standards in 2005 to reduce fleet-wide global warming
emissions from new vehicles by 25 percent in model year 2009, rising to
30 percent in model year 2016.
“This decision is a major turning
point in our nation’s fight to protect our future from global warming.
For six years, the Bush administration has toed the oil, coal, and auto
industry line on global warming, but this is their day of reckoning,”
said Tina Utter, a spokesperson for WashPIRG and the Campus Climate
Challenge Coalition at UW. “The nation can finally start following our
lead to put the many solutions we have at our finger tips to use in
fighting global warming,” she continued.
The Campus Climate
Challenge Coalition is an association of student groups working to
reduce carbon emissions on campus by ensuring the University adopts
carbon-neutral policies and also by educating students about ways to
reduce their own climate impact. Their most recent victory was
President Emmert's signature on the Presidents Climate Commitment.
“The
fact that the Supreme Court even heard this case proves the point we
are trying to make - that the decision makers in this country are so
busy fighting over the details that they are forgetting how easy it
could be to solve the problem through smart policies and technology
that already exists,” said Tina Utter. “That is why we are taking
matters into our own hands by leading the way. If people see that a
campus can easily cut their carbon emissions, they will realize that a
city, and even a nation can do the same.”
The Campus Climate
Challenge Coalition plans to send this message by participating in the
upcoming Step It Up day of action on April 14th. On this day, hundreds
of events will occur across the nation to demand that Congress adopt
legislation to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. In Seattle, the
event will be a march along the waterfront ending in a rally and
solutions fair. Students will rally in Red Square before joining the
march.
###
More information can be found at:
www.seattlestepitup.org
www.climatechallenge.org
www.washpirgstudents.org
|
