16 States Back EPA in Suit Challenging Endangerment Finding

It has only been a month since an organization called the Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc. filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding and, already, 16 states have lined up with the EPA, seeking to intervene in support of the challenged regulation.   The challenged regulation, entitled “Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act” (the “Final Rule”), was published in the Federal Register on December 15, 2009 and was issued by the EPA in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007).  The rules regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and engines.    In the Final Rule, the Administrator finds that “the body of scientific evidence compellingly supports” her conclusion that “greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare.” She defines the resulting air pollution referred to in Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act to be “the mix of six long-lived and directly-emitted greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O)), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfer hexafluoride (SF6).”  The Administrator concluded that the mix of greenhouse gases from transportation sources contribute to the climate change problem, which is reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare.   The Final Rule triggers the EPA’s statutory duty to promulgate regulations establishing emissions standards for motor vehicles covered by Section 202(a)of the Clean Air Act.   Noting that the Court’s action on the petition for review will affect the public health and welfare of their residents and will also affect a host of global warming impacts that the proposed intervenors are suffering, the following states seek to intervene in support of the EPA: Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the States of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.  The City of New York also filed in support of the EPA.   Notably absent from the Motion for Leave to Intervene as Respondents is the State of New Jersey, from which EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson came as the prior Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. New Jersey, which just last week inaugurated new Republican Governor Chris Christie, who unseated Democrat Jon Corzine, formerly supported climate change litigation and was among the states challenging the EPA in Massachusetts v. EPA.  The following states were not in the Massachusetts v. EPA case but joined the fight now in support of the regulations: Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland and New Hampshire.