Global Warming at the US Supreme Court

For those interested in the “global warming” case (Massachusetts v. EPA) heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday (which Rhode Island is a party to), Jonathan Adler of the Volokh Conspiracy has been compiling links on the media coverage, the Supreme Court has already posted the official transcript of the oral arguments, and the legal briefs filed in the case are available from the Community Rights Council website.

In one sentence, the case is not directly about the science of global warming, but about whether a) states can sue a Federal agency to force it to enact regulations in areas where they have not been granted express authority by Congress and b) whether anyone has the standing to sue for damages for the broad, collective effects of something like “global warming”. Expect the Court’s four liberal justices to rule that “Statutory mandates on executive branch agencies should be interpreted very broadly in places where we agree with the policy outcomes”, the four conservative justices to say that “Congress must grant specific authorization to a Federal agency before it can act”, and Anthony Kennedy to be the swing vote.