Assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School Stephanie Tai is one of four lawyers representing 18 scientists in a legal brief that will be presented to the United States Supreme Court.

According to Tai, who began teaching at UW this fall, the brief asks the Supreme Court to order the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate their 2002 decision not to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles.

This case will be the first climate-change court case presented to the Supreme Court, Tai said.

However, the National Academy of Science's National Research Council wrote a report for the EPA — as requested by President George W. Bush — about climate science in 2001.

But in 2002, the EPA declared it did not have the authority to regulate automobile greenhouse gasses under the federal Clean Air Act because the language in the report was scientifically uncertain.

Tai said there are three main possible outcomes for the case.

The Supreme Court could uphold the EPA's claim that they do not have the authority to regulate automobile greenhouse gasses, though she noted this is unlikely.

A more likely option, according to Tai, is for the Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts' decision. This outcome, she said, would give the EPA the authority to regulate automobile greenhouse-gas emission and require it to re-examine the scientific report.

Lastly, Tai said the Supreme Court might reverse the lower courts' decision, but give guidance to the EPA, telling them to consider more factors or to articulate their decision more clearly.

Of the 18 scientists challenging the EPA, six are on the National Academy of Science's National Research Council, which wrote the report.

Tai said the scientists feel the EPA is "taking language out of context" by calling the report scientifically uncertain, and that is why the case is being taken to the Supreme Court.

"Our position is [the EPA] picked out pieces of the report and ignored the part where the scientists say there is a lot of certainty," Tai said. "So it will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court does with that."

Steven Wofsy, a scientific signatory of the brief and professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at Harvard University, said he and other scientists involved in the case believe the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles.

Wofsy argued the EPA was "cherry-picking" pieces of information in the report to make their decision, causing the issue to be more political than it should be.

"Students and people who are interested in learning about a very important nexus of science and public affairs should think about the problem in the context of what we know, what we don't know, and what the risks are and what risks you wish to take," Wofsy said. "We are trying to take the debate from a politicized one … to one where you are actually thinking about the problem."

Tai said the purpose of the brief is to educate the Supreme Court about climate science and what the National Academy of Science's National Research Council wrote in their report, which Tai referred to as the "scientific majority."

The scientists want to make sure the Supreme Court fully understands the scientific report so they can make an informed ruling, Wofsy added.

"The way that the facts had been manipulated in this case was pretty artful and therefore could have misled the court, and we didn't want that to happen," he said. "The brief is there to provide information to the court as well as the public."