Awhile back, eleven state AG's and a number of environmental groups challenged the Naional Highway Safety Administration's rule on fuel economy.  Last week, a panel of the Nith Circuit agreed with slapped down the rules because they placed a zero value on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide that - to everyone on the planet except those who currently hold power in D.C. - have an impact on global warming.   The rules also left SUV's out of the rules altogether.

The Alliance of Automobile Manaufacterers (who represent the Big Three that is fast becoming the Little Three) are pounding their aging drums and decrying judicial activism. 

The real story behind the court's decision is that it was a one day story.  These cases are sadly becoming routine.  In case after case, court after court - almost always at the request of state attorneys general - are overcoming the presumptions granted administrative agencies and saying, "hey, go back to work.  Respect science. Read the law. Do your job."

This isn't the way it supposed to be, of course, because our environmental federal agencies are supposed to be on the side of the law and our collective futures.  Perhaps sometime soon we can all get back to having our federal government make rules for all of us and not just the powerful few.   When that happens, the AG's can get back to working with our federal government instead of against it.