Republican presidential candidates are taking aim at the Environmental Protection Agency on the campaign trail, pledging to strip it of the tools to address emissions, and other regulatory functions.
Those pledges come as the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 Monday in American Electric Power v. Connecticut to deny states and environmentalists the right to sue power plants in federal courts over greenhouse gas emissions. While arguably a loss for environmental advocates, the ruling was widely seen as reaffirming the federal environmental agency's authority to regulate emissions.
Days before the high court underscored that regulating greenhouse gases is the EPA's job alone, presidential hopeful Herman Cain vowed to, within the first 30 days of his administration, create a panel of oil and gas officials to instruct the agency in overhauling its permitting program, adding that eliminating the program entirely also “would be an option.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/23/2012-republicans-take-aim-at-epa_n_883182.html?ir=Green
