They did pass it as law, called the 1970 clean air act.
> greenhouse gases fit well within the CAA's capacious definition of air pollutant
- United States Supreme Court
The clean air act was already ruled to include greenhouse gasses. It's not under dispute, this court just disputes it because they have the power and ultimately are playing an end game of fostering a conservative government, i.e. they have long term political interests.
But they did not authorize the way that the EPA was setting standards for gas-fired power plants. The technicalities here run deep, but the fact that some academics at Yale think that it should be allowed tells us nothing -- already, three of the most brilliant legal minds in the country have already publicly dissented from the Supreme Court's opinion on the subject.
In the face of the ambiguity, the bias should be for the legislature to act to correct the ambiguity. There is no constitutional issue at stake, just a question of what the act authorized. Congress can just deal with this.
EDIT: This is incorrect; as pointed out below, the 1970 Act did not mention greenhouse gases or CO2 specifically. As of the 2022 amendment to the act there are several explict areas where greenhouse gases are specifically mentioned.
The text of the 1970 Clean Air Act is at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/91/hr17255/text, in which places does the text specifically call out the authority of the EPA to regulate CO2?
I do not see the words "CO2" or "carbon dioxide" in the text. I see references to "carbon monoxide" and "hydrocarbons" neither of which refer to CO2.
You may also be interested in the 2022 amendments to the Clean Air Act passed by Congress, which explicitly enumerate greenhouse gases as substances to be regulated by the EPA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_%28United_States....
That does not contain wording "including specifically CO2", which was the assertion I responded to.
>> You may also be interested in the 2022 amendments
No, I was interested in the original assertion that the 1970 Clean Air Act "spell[ed] out certain places where the EPA has authority in regulating greenhouse gases, including specifically CO2".
The clean air act says the EPA can determine what is/is not a pollutant based off whether it can harm the public. That, to me, means the law covers CO2. I don't understand how you can interpret it otherwise.
I made a claim about specific wording which was correctly pointed out to be incorrect. There was no claim made about the "spirit" on either side or interpretation. I made a factually incorrect claim that was pointed out to be factually incorrect; I don't know why you are continuing to argue.
The argument is CO2 emissions lead to continued climate change which unless you think climate change is a hoax made by the Chinese to kill US manufacturing it is reasonably anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.