Despite the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent finding that greenhouse gases will harm the environment and people’s health, three Republican legislators have drafted a bill to gut the Clean Air Act. They cite outsourcing of jobs and higher energy costs as reasons to restrict the EPA’s authority to regulate climate change. Specifically, their bill would end regulation of carbon dioxide emissions and prevent federal enforcement of state climate change laws. The two parties see climate change very differently. In the last Congress, Democrats passed a cap-and-trade bill in the House but the bill died in the Senate. Now the Republicans have a majority in the House. Current Speaker John Boehner, a climate skeptic, will ensure House passage of the new bill, but Senate passage is unlikely. SC


SCOTUS Poised to Handcuff the EPA
In the wake of reactionary rulings by the Supreme Court that seized a woman’s right to abortion after the Justices had unleashed potentially lethal freedoms to gun owners, one can only shudder at the prospect of the court’s upcoming decision on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).