Sierra Club: "Cuccinelli suit fails to halt implementation of EPA climate measures"

by: lowkell

Fri Dec 10, 2010 at 19:04:44 PM EST

As required by the Clean Air Act and the science, EPA has put forward a series of rules to control greenhouse gases in a sensible way, including the endangerment finding, vehicle rule, and tailoring rule.  Big polluters, right wing interest groups, and some states, including Virginia and Texas, immediately challenged the rules and called for the D.C. Circuit to take the extreme step of staying -- or blocking -- the rules from going into force before the court could even rule on the merits.  The Department of Justice, many states, including California, Massachusetts, and New York, and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, NRDC, and EDF, opposed that stay.

"Cuccinelli continues to waste Virginia tax payers' dollars on frivolous litigation," said Glen Besa, Director of the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter.  "Climate change as real, it is here now and we need to act."

Today, the court agreed that the polluters had not met the "stringent standards" required for a stay and denied their motions.  This means that the greenhouse gas controls will go forward, starting this January.  We expect that it will shortly become very clear that, contrary to industry scare tactics, EPA's rules protect the public and the economy by requiring careful measures to control global warming pollution from the biggest smokestack industries and by working with the automakers to increase fuel efficiency and cut vehicle emissions.

"The litigation is not over but this is an important victory," said Besa.