The Coffeespy

Can’t get legislation passed on an issue?  Send it to the judges for final disposition!  In a Roe v. Wade-esque move, the Supreme Court has decided how the EPA is supposed to do their jobs.  1973 - The Supreme Court tells Congress how to legislate.  2007 - The Supreme Court tells the executive how to enforce.  The kicker?  Well, you can read it.  From the Houston Chronicle:

In one of its most important environmental decisions in years, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions.

The court further ruled that the agency could not sidestep its authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change unless it can provide a scientific basis for its refusal.

Ah yes.  This is really what the whole thing boils down to, isn’t it?  You will believe in global warming unless you can prove scientifically it doesn’t exist.  Let’s see what fun we can have with this formulaic reasoning:

• You will believe in life on Jupiter unless you can prove scientifically it doesn’t exist.
• You will believe in the Yeti unless you can prove scientifically it doesn’t exist.
• You will believe in a flat Earth unless you can prove scientifically it doesn’t exist… well, at least we’ve made it past that one.

But the best one, in my opinion:

• You will believe in the One True God unless you can prove scientifically it doesn’t exist.

Back to the Chronicle:

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said the only way the agency could “avoid taking further action” now is “if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change” or provides a good explanation why it cannot or will not find out whether they do. 

The Supreme Court, the finest judicial minds in the nation, supposedly, have demanded the EPA supply them with a negative proof.  Negative proof, of course, is a logical fallacy.  In this case, the EPA is being asked to prove that it is impossible that ’greenhouse gasses’ contribute to climate change.  Since proving something is impossible is, well, impossible, that makes it fairly difficult.  Have environmental groups proven the impossibility that something beside ‘greenhouse gasses’ are at fault?  Of course not!  But the EPA has a different burden of proof to meet - an impossible one.

Oh, and no story would be complete without:

The 5-4 decision was a strong rebuke to the Bush administration, which has maintained that it does not have the right to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, and that even if it did, it would not use the authority. The ruling does not force the EPA to regulate auto emissions, but it would almost certainly face further legal action if it fails to do so.

The Clean Air Act has been around since 1963.  There have been numerous amendments and finally enforcement articles added in 2005.  Yet this is a strong rebuke to the Bush administration… because only the Bush administration has failed to make the EPA regulate since 1963.  Gotta love spin.