The Supreme Court Oral Argument in the Global Warming Case Reveals What’s Wrong

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Massachusetts v. EPA, which presents the question of whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the Clean Air Act by failing to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by motor vehicles in the United States.

The stakes could not be higher. A recent British study estimated the likely economic costs from global warming to be on the scale of those of the Great Depression or the First or Second World War. Yet U.S. auto emissions account for only about six percent of human-generated greenhouse gases escaping into the atmosphere, so that even a radical reduction–say, by half–would have no effect on 97 percent of human-generated greenhouse gases. Thus, the Bush Administration has argued, regulation by the EPA without international coordination, will simply impose domestic costs without substantial benefits.

Who makes the better case?

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