US climate change legislation

Abstract

Despite the on-going intransigence of the Bush Administration with respect to addressing global climate change, there are growing indications that the issue will be put front and centre in American public policy debate through a series of legal actions now pending before U.S. federal courts. While clearly the Bush Administration has a veritable strangle hold on any legislation or US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that might address climate change, what it has relatively little influence over is how federal courts might deal with this issue. Don C. Smith assesses what this might mean for US climate change policy.