If We Don't Study Global Warming, Maybe It Will Go Away
The U.S. District Court in San Francisco recently ordered the White House to produce two climate change reports for Congress that were due in July 2006 and November 2004, respectively.
Environmental advocates sued the Bush administration for ignoring a 2004 congressional deadline to report to lawmakers and the public on the latest research on global warming. The 1990 Global Change Research Act requires the government to produce a scientific report every four years on climate change and its effect on the environment.
When the suit was filed, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the government had chosen other means of complying with the law: a series of 21 mini-reports on various aspects of climate change, issued over a two-year period. The first of those documents, in May 2006, discussed temperature trends in the lower atmosphere but did not describe any potential effects on the environment.
U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong, who issued the order, did not rule out the possibility that a series of reports might ultimately meet the requirements of the GCRA.
The court gave the Bush administration until May 31, 2008 to produce the reports, one of which is a research plan and the other an assessment of the effects of climate change. The response is oh-so-Washington -- according to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, the administration intends to pursue the bizarre strategy of both complying with the ruling five months early, and appealing it. Don’t expect too many earth-shattering (or ice-cap melting) revelations in the eventual reports, given the administration's general head-in-the-sand approach to global warming.
This post contributed by David J. Petersen, partner practicing in the Sustainability and Real Estate & Land Use Practice Groups.
