Global warming is the central environmental challenge of our time. In 2007 in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled that global warming pollutants were covered by the Clean Air Act and directed the EPA to determine whether the continued emission of such pollutants endangered the country’s public health and welfare. In December 2009, the EPA issued this “endangerment finding,” concluding that, based on the best science, global warming pollution presents a clear threat to public health and welfare. The endangerment finding was the scientific determination necessary to allow the agency to start limiting global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act.

In January, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced a Congressional Review Act disapproval resolution (S.J. Res. 26) that would overturn EPA’s endangerment finding. The resolution would prevent the EPA from taking the necessary steps under the Clean Air Act to address global warming pollution. In particular, the resolution would dismantle the clean vehicles standards negotiated by the Obama administration and supported by the auto industry, labor, states, and environmentalists, putting at risk standards that are estimated to save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the program. In addition to blocking the clean cars standards, the resolution would have blocked new commonsense safeguards to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink from global warming pollution from some of our country’s biggest polluters. The Senate defeated S.J. Res. 26.