Abstract

There was never any doubt that Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (“Mass. v. EPA”) would be a closely watched and hotly contested case. The surprise in Mass. v. EPA is the facility and ease with which the Court dispatched opposing arguments and redefined prior precedents. Not content to widen doctrines on the margins, Justice Stevens’s majority opinion blazed a new path through the law of standing and unearthed newfound regulatory authority for the EPA.

Now that EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases, regulatory controls on motor vehicles (as well as on other sources of greenhouse gases, including utilities and industrial facilities) are sure to follow. In time, however, Mass. v. EPA may come to stand for more than the simple proposition that Congress delegated authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the CAA. It may herald in a new era of state-sponsored litigation, environmental standing, and statutory interpretation—and yet still do little to cool down a warming planet.

This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-21-2007

Publication Information

93 Virginia Law Review In Brief 63-75 (2007)

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