Cuccinelli loses another battle against the winds of greenhouse gas regulations

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously upheld the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) groundbreaking (and lifesaving) greenhouse gas regulations on Wednesday, denying Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in his challenge of the regulations.[1]

The court backed the EPA’s 2009 determination that climate change has a damaging impact, denying two state-backed and two industry petitions seeking to derail the EPA’s original determination that greenhouse gases constitute a health risk and should therefore be regulated under the Clean Air Act.[2] The U.S. Court of Appeals also upheld the so-called “tailpipe” rule that set greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light-duty trucks starting with models in 2012. 

After the ruling, Cuccinelli said he plans to waste more of Virginia’s taxpayer dollars by petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Cuccinelli is a known climate change denier.[3] 

After the ruling was handed down, industry lawyers have been left with few options. One is to take the path Cuccinelli has already said he’ll travel. The other path industry lawyers could take is petitioning the court of appeals to rehear the case. Cuccinelli obviously feels he has a better chance of winning in the Supreme Court.

For now, however, Americans can breathe a little easier, literally. The EPA’s new greenhouse gas regulations may only affect new power plants, but the symbolic blow to big carbon polluters like coal plants, in particular, marks an important shift in America’s, and Virginia’s, energy policy.[4] Thus, to conclude that the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations are somehow unnecessary misses one aspect of the significance of these regulations.

No one should expect America’s biggest carbon polluters to back down without a fight. Indeed, Big Coal is already on the war-path to reinstate coal atop America’s A-list of energy-use resources.[5]

Politics is about constant struggle between conflicting interests. This time, however, all of Big Coal’s money and all of Big Coal’s men (i.e. lobbyists) may not be able to reinstate coal’s once untoppled position in America again. America’s clean energy future is one step closer to realization.

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[1] http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/06/26/1

[2] http://hamptonroads.com/2012/06/court-rejects-cuccinellis-challenge-epa-finding

[3] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/07/15/cuccinelli-warms-to-his-task-of-climate-change-denial/

[4] http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/03/27/climate-rules-why-natural-gas-will-be-the-big-winner-in-new-greenhouse-gas-regulations/?xid=rss-topstories

[5] http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/03/27/climate-rules-why-natural-gas-will-be-the-big-winner-in-new-greenhouse-gas-regulations/?xid=rss-topstories