Enviros - One, Finally

This is news that makes waking up early worth it: Federal District Judge Saundra Armstrong in Oakland, CA has just ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace, in their suit against - gasp!!! - the administration (The case is Center for Biological Diversity v. Brennan, 06-7062, U.S. District Court, for the Northern District of California.).

At issue is foot-dragging and failure to meet deadlines for an updated U.S. climate change research plan and impact assessment. a plan meant to guide federal research on climate change. The research plan is a year overdue, the impact assessment is now three years past due. Judge Armstrong ordered the admin to get off the pot and release the documents by next spring (or what? I have to wonder). She effectively gave the administration (which in typical monarchical fashion had claimed that it had discretion over how and when it produced the reports) a well-deserved slap on the hand, stating simply in her ruling: "The defendants are wrong." As it was a 38 page ruling, I imagine she said a great deal more as well. this is, in the words of Kassie Siegel, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, "a huge victory holding the administration accountable for its attempts to suppress science," and as such it is something long overdue.

Judge Orders Bush Administration to Issue Global Warming Report
Environmentalists Win White House Suit

Technorati Tags: climate science suppression, Saundra Brown, environmental win

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