Unelected and Unaccountable

SCOTUS, in a 5-4 decision ruled today that the EPA has what appears to be unbridled power to regulate "greenhouse gases."

... (CNSNews.com) - In the first case of its kind to reach the high court, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the power to regulate greenhouse gases and that the EPA has "no reasoned explanation" for not doing so.

"Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act's capacious definition of 'air pollutant' we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles," the court ruled.

Environmentalists hailed the ruling. "While this case has worked its way through EPA and the courts, scientific evidence of global warming has continued to mount - so much so that the scientific debate is over," said Earthjustice attorney Howard Fox.

"Our climate is warming, and pollution from human activities is a major cause," Fox said in a statement. "Harms include rising seas that submerge coastal lands, stronger hurricanes, more drought, melting ice caps and degraded ecosystems."

The Sierra Club called the ruling "a watershed moment in the fight against global warming."

"This is a total repudiation of the refusal of the Bush administration to use the authority he [sic] has to meet the challenge posed by global warming," the Associated Press quoted Sierra Club spokesman Josh Dorner as saying.

The decision was clearly based on blind allegiance to faulty science:

...The overall tone of the 5-4 decision, written by the liberal wing of the court, showed concern for global warming and respect for the worries voiced by Massachusetts and other states about diminished coast line and other atmospheric problems associated with warmer temperatures.

The Bush administration had said that those concerns — brought before the justices by 12 states, three cities and several public health and environmental groups — did not merit federal court intervention. The administration also argued that the agency lacked the authority to regulate air pollutants associated with climate change under the Clean Air Act.

"The EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

While the court stopped short of saying that the EPA must actually limit vehicle emissions, it also said "the EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do."

There was a conservative dissent to this left-wing power grab:

The opinion prompted caustic dissents from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. During oral arguments last November, Roberts and Scalia had particularly questioned the dangers of global warming.

Stevens' opinion for the majority in its first case on greenhouse gases opened with a reference to the link between "a well-documented rise in global temperature" and the "significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." He emphasized that "respected scientists believe the two trends are related."

While there are some who state that CO2 cannot be considered a pollutant, since it is a compound necessary for the cycle of life itself, the bigger picture demands an answer as to why SCOTUS has inserted itself in a debate that is clearly extra-Constitutional in scope. Secondly, to whom is the EPA, a governmental agency, but not a branch of government, accountable? Thirdly, where is the check and balance against SCOTUS in this matter, in which they have clearly overstepped their bounds in the balance of power in extra-Constitutional areas of policy that clearly belong to the purview of the Representative (Executive and Legislative) branches of government? Also, has SCOTUS, via their ruling, created another branch of government, unaccountable to the governed?

The left, of course, considers this a "victory." But to them, a victory is any grab of power they can accomplish outside of representative channels of government, that will in turn further their blood lust for a tyrannical, socialist state.

No matter which way you slice it, this stinks to high heaven...

Or more appropriately, in this case, to low hell.
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