The Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases are harmful to people's health has been questioned in court by Virginia's attorney general.
Ken Cuccinelli filed a brief in D.C. Superior Court, claiming the data that the EPA used to make its determination on greenhouse gases was not scientifically sound. Cuccinelli filed the reply brief on behalf of Virginia, Texas, and 13 other states.
"With respect to the original Endangerment Finding, the EPA so pervasively delegated its statutory functions that it lacked the information to ensure that its data quality standards were satisfied," he writes in his filing.
He alleged the EPA used data from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cuccinelli says the U.N.'s research methods should be further investigated, and cited the "Climategate" emails to call the U.N.'s climate research into question.
The Virginia attorney general wants the EPA to rethink its decision about whether greenhouse gases really are dangerous. He asks that the agency open new hearings into the issue.
"Whenever a government agency states a conclusion that is allegedly based on science, but refuses to comply with its own rules that require it to 'show its work,' we should all be concerned," Cuccinelli said in a press release.
In 2010, Cuccinnelli pushed for an investigation into the climate research of a former University of Virginia professor. Cuccinelli sought the professor's emails and records to determine whether his research into global warming was fraudulent, but was rebuffed in state court.
