The Supreme Court Rules that the EPA Has to do Their Job

The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate green house gases (CO2) in automobile exhaust emissions. The Bush Administration has maintained that the EPA does not he the authority to regulate the CO2 emissions. This ruling does not force the EPA to regulate CO2 but there will likely be further legal action if they do not.

It will be very interesting to see how the EPA and the automotive industry responds to this new pressure for lower CO2 emissions. The problem is that the level of CO2 emitted from an automobile is directly related to the size of an internal combustion engine's size. Unless there is a technological breakthrough, one to three things must happen in order to lower a vehicles CO2 emissions. The first is smaller lighter vehicles with smaller engines. The Second is hybrid vehicles where an electric motor can allow for the use of a smaller engine. The third are vehicles that are powered with alternative fuels such as electricity or hydrogen. For the third to lower greenhouse gases the electricity or hydrogen must be made from non CO2 producing sources such as solar, wind or geothermal.