Virginia challenges U.S. greenhouse gas curbs

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) on Tuesday filed paperwork attacking the legal underpinnings of an Obama administration effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, joining a crowd of political conservatives and business groups with similar objections. Cuccinelli sent a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking the agency to reconsider its finding in December that greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health by contributing to climate change. That finding is a legal trigger, which would allow the EPA to regulate those gases under the Clean Air Act, the same way it regulates the pollutants that cause smog. Rutgers University law professor Craig Oren said it could be a difficult effort. For it to succeed, Oren said it could require proving that the EPA willfully disregarded available science, its own rules or precedent. "You have to show EPA was arbitrary," he said. "I give them less than 50-50" odds...read more