Tomorrow, President Bush will be delivering a speech to "spell out a strategy for long term goals for curbing emissions" in advance of the "Major Economies" climate change meeting in Paris later this week. He won't be laying out any comprehensive proposals, though he will critique those being floated in Congress. Translation: probably nothing new of note besides cover for the administration's indefensible policies-- as per the predictions of CAP's Brad Johnson and Joe Romm; in spite of efforts by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and other industry allies to get the White House behind an economy-wide global warming bill that tracks industry talking points and preempts bolder state leadership; and right in line with the strategems laid out by do-nothing advocates like National Review writer Iain Murray.
Instead, those looking for concrete policies from the administration should turn their attention to the New York courthouse that houses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Tomorrow also happens to be the deadline for the Department of Justice to file a friend-of-the-court brief-- as it has indicated it would like-- in support of the auto industry's appeal of a lower court ruling that refused to preempt Vermont's clean cars program.
Vermont and a dozen other states are barred from moving forward by the EPA's denial of California's waiver application, but the industry's confidence in that bogus decision holding up in the long term is evidently minimal, as it has crafted a legal strategy that points to a potential Supreme Court showdown on preemption. (Such an effort also tracks closely with the administration's broader assault on state authority, as evinced by cases like Riegel v. Medtronic).
Should the White House join in, and talk a bunch about wanting to have a "unified national approach," then journalists like the NY Times' Andy Revkin will have a firm answer to hasty speculation on whether the White House is seeking a new legacy on global warming. It's certainly bad enough for the White House to invent legal justifications out of thin air, ignore the Supreme Court for over a year, and generally pass Harry Truman's proverbial buck on to the next administration. Charting a course that puts up roadblocks long after January 2009 would up the ante to an entirely new level of disastrous implications.
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