The Bush administration has had a very relaxed policy toward greenhouse gas emissions, and now has had its most major legislation to control emissions turned down by a Supreme Court decision.

On Friday Bush's Clean Air Interstate Rule, an attempt to establish regulations on emissions of greenhouse gases such as Nitrogen Dioxide, was shot down by the director of the EPA, who claimed that there was no way that the agency could expand to enforce the rule [1].

The Clean Air Interstate Rule would be effected on the eastern half of the U.S.  would set regulations on emissions of industry, particularly the electric utilities who have been fighting the rule, claiming that it would be unfair to their business to allocate credits for maximum emissions that can be produced per plant. Moreover, the cleanup would be focused on the industries who power generators with gas and oil rather than coal. [2]

The energy industries have publicly stated that they did not want the act over turned, just for changes to be made to some of the law about the allocation of pollution allowances was possibly unfair to some energy companies thus limiting their production.

Bush's critics however have seen this back and forth between the administration and the energy companies as posturing [3]. Many of Bush's critics have looked to the administration's ignorance of EPA documents on global climate change as a sign that this bill was the latest attempt to garner support from environmentalists. These attempts include the promise to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

The Bush administration to date has done very little to address climate change thus far, and with this ruling will leave climate problems and environmental legislation to the next presidential administration.