Not for the Supremes

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a climate change debate at the urging of greenies, to rule on whether emissions from new cars, trucks, and power plants must be further regulated to slow climate change. This is totally wrong. This is a matter that should be decided by Congress, not the Supreme Court.

(To see the lack of consensus on this issue, read “There Is No ‘Consensus’ On Global Warming” in yesterday’s WSJ by MIT professor, Richard S. Lindzen.)

Meanwhile, President Bush acknowledged yesterday that global warming is a serious problem. But he went on to say there’s a debate whether it’s manmade or naturally caused. And he called for new technologies to deal with the problem. (Notably, he did not call for the Kyoto treaty, which would decimate economic production and raise unemployment all around the world.) Bush cited clean coal technology, hybrid auto fuels and new nuclear energy capability.

As I discussed in my latest column, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just approved the first major commercial nuclear facility in thirty years. Construction of the $1.5 billion National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico could begin in August, and Louisiana Energy Services CEO Jim Ferland says they could be ready to sell enriched uranium (for electricity) by early 2009. Sen. Pete Domenici calls this a “renaissance of nuclear energy in this country.”

But what the Supreme Court has to do with all of this is way beyond me. This would be judicial activism on a super-grand scale.

Next thing you know, they’ll be ruling on marginal tax rates. And, after that, perhaps the High Court will promulgate new targets for Federal Reserve control of the monetary base and M2.