Acanthophis Gore XVII

Scalia Dissenting

Here is an excerpt of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in the 2006
MASSACHUSETTS v. EPA ruling.
It concluded that the EPA can now regulate CO2 as a pollutant.
If the leftist justices who passed this ruling understand these things Scallia does, they are contemptuous, devious and nefarious in their agenda.
In other words, like Al Gore they are snakes.

Scalia said:
"......Thus, in deciding whether it had authority to regulate, EPA had to determine whether the concentration of greenhouse gases assertedly responsible for “global climate change” qualifies as “air pollution.” EPA began with the common sense observation that the “[p]roblems associated with atmospheric concentrations of CO2, bear little resemblance to what would naturally be termed “air pollution”: “EPA’s prior use of the CAA’s general regulatory provisions provides an important context. Since the inception of the Act, EPA has used these provisions to address air pollution problems that occur primarily at ground level or near the surface of the earth.

For example, national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) established under CAA section 109 address concentrations of substances in the ambient air and the related public health and welfare problems. This has meant setting NAAQS for concentrations of ozone, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and other substances in the air near the surface of the earth, not higher in the atmosphere. . . . CO2, by contrast, is fairly consistent in concentration throughout the world’s atmosphere up to approximately the lower stratosphere.” In other words, regulating the buildup of CO2and other greenhouse gases in the upper reaches of the atmosphere,which is alleged to be causing global climate change, is notakin to regulating the concentration of some substance that is polluting the air.

We need look no further than the dictionary for confir-mation that this interpretation of “air pollution” is emi-nently reasonable. The definition of “pollute,” of course, is “[t]o make or render impure or unclean.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 1910 (2d ed. 1949). And the first three definitions of “air” are as follows: (1) “[t]he invisible, odorless, and tasteless mixture of gases which surrounds the earth”; (2) “[t]he body of the earth’s atmosphere; esp.,the part of it near the earth, as distinguished from theupper rarefied part”; (3) “[a] portion of air or of the air considered with respect to physical characteristics or asaffecting the senses.”

EPA’s conception of “air pollution”—focusing on impurities in the “ambient air” “atground level or near the surface of the earth”—is perfectly consistent with the natural meaning of that term. In the end, EPA concluded that since “CAA authorization to regulate is generally based on a finding that an air pollutant causes or contributes to air pollution,” the concentrations of CO2 and other green-house gases allegedly affecting the global climate are beyond the scope of CAA’s authorization to regulate. “[T]he term ‘air pollution’ as used in the regulatory provisions cannot be interpreted to encompass global climate change.”

Once again, the Court utterly fails toexplain why this interpretation is incorrect, let alone so unreasonable as to be unworthy of Chevron deference.

The Court’s alarm over global warming may or may not be justified, but it ought not distort the outcome of this litigation. This is a straightforward administrative law case, in which Congress has passed a malleable statutegiving broad discretion, not to us but to an executive agency. No matter how important the underlying policyissues at stake, this Court has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency. "
environmental