A Legal Opinion on Mass. v. EPA
I'll be honest - I felt a little lost last week reading the oral arguments from the Supreme Court. I'm no lawyer, and while I understand the basics of the case, I knew there were a lot of subtleties I was missing. So today I found a commentary from Michael C. Dorf which clarifies some of the legal jargon. In particular, it does a really good job explaining the standing doctrine, which comes out of Article III of the Constitution. Here's a paragraph that summarizes the standing rules:
The standing rules that the Supreme Court has located in the case-or-controversy requirement are complex, but three requirements stand out as particularly strange in a case like Massachusetts v. EPA. The plaintiff must show: first, that the injury alleged by the plaintiff is imminent; second, that the alleged injury is "concrete and particularized," rather than a "generalized grievance;" and third, that it is "likely," rather than merely "speculative," that the alleged injury will be redressed by a favorable judgment.
And from there the author goes on to expand on each of those three points. It's still written in "lawyer," but it does help to clarify the case.
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Comments (4)
Thanks for the comment in the earlier entry on "whats at stake" that C02 acually is specifically but mentioned in a section on non-regulatory actions. But the as Dorf�s comments says: the EPA has already been deemed competent to curb sulfur dioxide emission from fossil fuels so why not CO2 that also stems from fossil fuels, including stationary sources?
The statement that curbing the CO2 emissions of 6% of the global annual from US cars is too little to be effective misses the point that if the US would start to curb such emission many more would follow suit and that would have a total immense impact, especially if stationary sources also are included. If everyone wants to wait for someone else to start taking action nothing will ever be done...
Posted by Johan | December 4, 2006 2:09 PM
Johan,
My reading of the oral arguments makes it fairly clear that the court cannot decide this case based on the assumption that others will follow suit on CO2 reduction if they decide in favor of Massachusetts. They must decide strictly on what is in the suit. That is, that the reduction in CO2 emissions from vehicles will prevent sea level rises which will take away coastline.
Posted by Laura Hannon | December 5, 2006 9:05 AM
Of course the court can not take into account any possible changes in policies that others (countries) might take if the EPA would have (or will) decided to regulate CO2 emissions. But any action that any other US states of agencies might take could perhaps be of interest?
Again, it seems a very difficult case to win. There are so many ifs and buts that one would expect reasonable doubt to throw out the case? Usually in court the crime has been done and has had an effect. In this case the supposed crime has happened but will not (if at all) have any impact for another 50 years or so? Crime prevention is more a police/policy matter than judicial, or?
The criteria on particularity and likehood set out by the standing rules seem to be fulfilled although with some reservation on how "imminent" the disappeance of the MA coastline is, which seems be the concern of the judges. a heavy read that oral transcript. we will see what happens. but cannot the state of Mass set emission targets of maximum emission levels, just as Calif has said it will do?
Posted by Johan | December 5, 2006 10:47 AM
It is doubtful that the sea will take away the coastline, more than likely it may move the coastline.
There are seashells and fish in rocks high in the mountains.
Lorenzo
Posted by l | December 8, 2006 8:16 PM