Clean Air Win: Court Upholds EPA's Greenhouse Gas Rules

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on Tuesday to uphold the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ability to curb greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, rejecting challenges by polluting industries.

The court found that the EPA was "unambiguously correct" in using its regulation to address global warming.

Environmental groups have applauded the ruling as a landmark win for clean air and the climate.

Earthjustice attorney and co-counsel for Environmental Defense Fund Howard Fox stated, "Polluting industries such as big coal and big oil oppose action to limit climate change, refusing to modernize and resisting newer technologies. This case underscores these industries' dogged resistance to safeguards designed to protect the public's health and the environment. Notably, the automobile industry did not join these misguided challenges, but instead opposed these big industrial polluters' efforts to overturn the standards that apply to cars."

Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, reacted to the decision saying, "Now that the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the reality of the climate crisis and EPA's duty and ability to address the problem, it's time for the agency to aggressively combat the most serious social and environmental threat of our age. All parties need to put politics aside right away and work toward the solutions that are so readily available -- because the moral case for action could not be stronger."