Mass. leads 18-state suit against greenhouse gases

BOSTON – State Attorney General Martha Coakley on Thursday led an 18-state coalition aimed at pushing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enforce laws enacted to halt the spread of greenhouse gases that damage the atmosphere.The coalition, the corporation counsel for the city of New York, and the city solicitor for Baltimore, urged EPA Administrator Lisa Jack to act in response to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA.Representatives of each state sent letters to Jackson to emphasize their concern. “On April 2, 2007 the Supreme Court established the EPA’s responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases under the federal Clean Air Act,” said Coakley. “With the change in administrations, we’re extremely hopeful that the EPA will finally start to do its job under the statute.”According to Coakley, the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling is fast approaching. “We are urging administrator Jackson to issue as quickly as possible a determination that greenhouse gases are endangering public health and welfare,” she said.In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled that, contrary to the agency’s claim, the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The nation’s highest court also held that the agency could not refuse to use that authority based on the agency’s policy preferences. Instead, the EPA would have to decide, based on the science, whether it believed that greenhouse gas emissions were posing dangers to public health or welfare, Coakley explained.If the EPA determined that endangerment was occurring, the agency would have to start the process of setting emission standards for greenhouse gases, she said. The Bush Administration chose not to address the problem. In late 2007, EPA officials sent a proposed endangerment determination to the White House as an e-mail attachment, but Bush Administration officials refused to open the document, and former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson refused repeated requests to make the document public.In addition to Massachusetts, the following states signed on to Thursday’s letter: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.