Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in dissenting opinion regarding the case Massachusetts et al vs. EPA et al, said “No matter how important the underlying policy issues at stake, this court has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency.” He and the other four conservative justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, did not feel that the state of Massachusetts had a legal right to bring the action.
How anyone with a thread of intelligence could think that the state of Massachusetts doesn’t have a legal right to bring action against EPA boggles my mind. Every state in the US should have a right to bring action against EPA as it was abdicating its responsibility to protect the health and welfare of the citizens of the US. Massachusetts, with coastline, has an interest in the increasing height of oceans and the massive change in weather as witnessed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in recent years.
The fact that EPA stated that to regulate auto emissions would hurt the economy and was not in the best interest of the administration does not mean that EPA does not have a mandate to do so. EPA is suppose to be an independent agency that protects. It is not to be a tool to be manipulated.
I applaud the Supreme Court ruling and the five forward seeing justices who, in the assenting to the opinion of the Court, found that EPA should set regulations for auto emissions.
