Supreme arguments

The oral arguments today in the first global-warming case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court signaled a possible divide among the justices over whether the Bush Administration should be doing more to regulate tailpipe emissions.

According to a Bloomberg News report, Chief Justice John Roberts said the 12 states suing the Environmental Protection Agency for its refusal to regulate those emissions were ``spinning out conjecture on conjecture'' to support the argument that they would benefit from EPA rules.

And Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that U.S. motor vehicles account for only 6 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

``So the reduction that you could achieve under the best of circumstances with these regulations would be a small portion of that, would it not?'' Alito asked.

But Justice David Souter pointed out that even a little improvement would be helpful.

``It will reduce the degree of global warming and reduce the degree of coastal loss,'' Souter said. ``That's their argument -- not all or nothing, but a part.''

Other justices suggested the EPA had relied on impermissible factors in deciding not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, Bloomberg reported. Justice John Paul Stevens questioned the EPA's reliance on three National Academy of Sciences reports for the notion that scientists are unsure whether so-called greenhouse gases are increasing the earth's temperature.

``They left out the parts that indicated there was far less uncertainty than the agency purported to find,'' Stevens said during the hour-long argument in Washington.

Justice Antonin Scalia, usually no friend to increased government regulation, said the plaintiffs had made a ``persuasive'' point in comparing global warming to acid rain. The EPA does regulate sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain.

``Why isn't it air pollution within the meaning of the statute, when whatever it is that causes acid rain is?'' Scalia asked.

The divide among the Supremes may leave Justice Anthony Kennedy as the deciding vote, as he was in a Clean Water Act-related case in the court's last term. Kennedy didn't tip his hand today, directing a handful of questions to both sides in the hour-long argument, Bloomberg reported.

To read the full Bloomberg report click here:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBH9jnZ97EaM&refer=home

Gregory G. Garre, the deputy solicitor general who argued on behalf of the EPA, contended that that forcing the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions would require the agency to venture into an "extraordinarily complex area of science," creating unpredictable results, the Boston Globe reports.

But James R. Milkey, chief of the environmental division at the Massachusetts attorney general's office, told the justices that carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles contributed 6 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and those emissions threatened Massachusetts's 200 miles of coastline along with shores around the world, the Globe reported.

To read the Globe report on the case, which is Massachusetts v. EPA: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/11/29/supreme_court_takes_up_global_warming_case/