EPA Drags Feet On Global Warming Rule

When it comes to recognizing landmarks on the road to a cooler climate, the Bush Administration appears to be lost in the woods. In testimony yesterday, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said it may be December before the Environmental Protection Agency decides whether or not 13 states can enact rules to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, something they have been trying to do for three years.

Nearly four months ago, the Supreme Court built one very hard to miss landmark: A decision that said the Environmental Protection Agency has not only the authority, but the responsibility, to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. With that authority -- one executive power that Bush Administration did not want -- the EPA had to finally make a decision about a 2004 petition by California that seeks to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles.

A dozen other states will follow California's lead, if the EPA approves a Clean Air Act waiver for the state. In the bureaucratic world of the Clean Air Act, California is the only state with the right to petition for statewide rules that are more strict than federal rules, and if it enacts them, others states may as well. States and cities have been leading the charge to do something about climate change, and in the absence of federal wherewithal, they have been emboldened.

No doubt, if the EPA fails to recognize this landmark Supreme Court decision as the mandate that it is, those states and cities will sue. But mucking around any longer in the courts, when the Supreme Court has already spoken, is simply a waste of time on an issue too important for foot dragging.

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