Green Options

Russian environmental groups have today launched a legal challenge against a consortium led by U.S. oil and gas giant Exxon, for threatening critically endangered whales in the far east of the country.

Last year, Russian authorities gave Exxon the green light to build a pipeline across a lagoon on Sakhalin Island that is a crucial feeding ground for the world’s last surviving colony of Western Gray Whales.

Twelve states - New York, California, and a few I’ve never heard of - have announced yet another suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They claim federal regulators have failed in issuing the necessary standards to regulate green house gas emissions. The EPA’s rebuttal: it’s not in our job description.

Announcement of the suit came Monday and is being led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. It charges the EPA with once again violating the Clean Air Act by refusing to issue oil refineries a performance standard in which to curb global warming.  A claim hinged on the fact that 15 percent of the U.S.’s industrial emissions comes from crude refineries.

“The EPA’s refusal to control pollution from oil refineries is the latest example of the Bush Administration’s do-nothing policy on global warming,” Cuomo said in a release. “Oil refineries contribute substantially to global warming, posing grave threats to New York’s environment, health, and economy.”

But the EPA is pointing to Congress to get the job done. EPA spokesman Tim Lyons said time and money would be better spent by encouraging Congress to take action on sound environmental legislation. But it was just in 2003 when the EPA claimed that under the Clean Air Act they couldn’t regulate vehicle emmissions because green house gases were not air pollutants. And as a result from another suit against them, the Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 ruling that they should step up and regulate CO2 emissions.