

Environmentalists who sued the Bush administration for failing to issue legally-mandated climate change reports have won.

On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that the administration had broken a 1990 law requiring the President to regularly issue two climate change plans, one guiding research and the other summarizing the effects of climate change in the United States. The former report was due in 2006, and the latter in 2004.

Reports the Associated Press,

The administration had claimed that it had discretion over how and when it produced the reports _ an argument the judge rejected Tuesday. "The defendants are wrong," Armstrong wrote in the 38-page ruling.

"Congress has conferred no discretion upon the defendants as to when they will issue revised Research Plans and National Assessments."

It's certainly a victory for holding the government accountable to the law. But in a way I hope the administration appeals the ruling and doesn't release the reports. At this point, they'd probably be so hopelessly politicized that it'd be better to let the next administration do the job right.

Judge orders White House to produce global warming reports [Associated Press]

Image: NASA GISS