Gay marriages blocked by Romney recorded

BOSTON - Massachusetts' governor ordered state officials to record the marriages of 26 out-of-state gay couples whose unions were blocked by his predecessor, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"I think that the previous administration was using a gimmick to make what I feel was a discriminatory point," Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, said in announcing the move. "It's a simple gesture to include the information on the register. Keeping it out was the gimmick."

Registering the marriages in Massachusetts' vital records won't change the legal marriage status of the couples in their home states.

About 8,000 same-sex couples have wed in Massachusetts since the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that the state Constitution guarantees gays the right to marry. A few other states offer civil unions with similar rights for gay couples, but only Massachusetts allows gay marriage.

Last spring, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Romney could use a 1913 law to prohibit out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their home states explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage.

The 26 couples affected by Patrick's decision had obtained marriage licenses in four towns where clerks defied Romney's order not to issue marriage licenses to out-of-state gay couples.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said the former governor was right to refuse to record the marriages because Massachusetts law does not recognize marriages between same-sex couples from outside the state.

"It was Governor Romney's enforcement of this law that stopped gay marriage from being visited on every other state in the country," Fehrnstrom told The Boston Globe. "Now that Governor Romney is out of office, we are seeing an erosion of the previously strong defense of traditional marriage coming out of the executive branch."

State Department of Public Health Commission John Auerbach said Monday he will move quickly to act on Patrick's request. He called it "fitting and welcome that our state will now treat the recording of all marriage certificates equally."

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that the nation's Environmental Protection Agency must consider greenhouse gases as pollutants and deal with the issue, in a blow to President George W. Bush.

"Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act's capacious definition of 'air pollutant' we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles," the court ruled.

Led by Massachusetts, a dozen states along with several US cities and environmental groups went to the courts to determine whether the agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide emissions.

"The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized," said judge John Paul Stevens in the sharply divided ruling with five votes in favor to four against.

"EPA's steadfast refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions presents a risk of harm to Massachusetts that is both 'actual' and 'imminent.'"

The Bush administration has fiercely opposed any imposition of binding emissions limits on the nation's industry and has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

Environmentalists have alleged that since Bush came to office in 2001 his administration has ignored and tried to hide looming evidence of global warming and the key role of human activity in climate change.

At a hearing in November, Massachusetts argued that it risked losing more than 4.5 meters (15 feet) of land all along its coastline if the sea level should rise 30 centimeters (one foot).

But the Bush administration backed by nine states and several auto manufacturers urged the court not to intervene, arguing that if the situation was so dire it could not be solved by a simple legal decision.

It further argued that reducing emissions from new US motor vehicles would have only a minor effect on global climate change.

"While it may be true that regulating motor-vehicle emissions will not by itself reverse global warming, it by no means follows that we lack jurisdiction to decide whether EPA has a duty to take steps to slow or reduce it," the court ruled.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration and EPA would have to "analyze" the decision and denied ever contesting that greenhouse gases contribute to global warming.

Environmental campaigners, who have been fighting for greater regulations in a nation which accounts for a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions, hailed Monday's ruling, as did a handful of politicians.

"This is a total repudiation of the refusal of the Bush administration to use the authority he has to meet the challenge posed by global warming," said Josh Dorner, spokesman for theSierra Club environmental group.

It also "sends a clear signal to the market that the future lies not in dirty, outdated technology of yesterday, but in clean energy solutions of tomorrow like wind, solar," he added.

Bush is strongly opposed to Kyoto's approach of binding cuts, also called caps, in emissions and has instead promoted voluntary action, backed by some incentives for cleaner energy sources and gains in energy efficiency.

California GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger, whose state is among several to have already acted independently to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, said he was "very encouraged" by the ruling.

Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the decision "rejects the Bush administration's 'do nothing' approach to the problem," while fellow candidate, Senator Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), said that "after six years of inaction and denial our government must take bold action to save our planet."

While the court's decision is unlikely to change US policy, it has ramifications on several other ongoing issues, such as the agency's refusal to regulate emissions from electricity plants which produce some 40 percent of US carbon dioxide emissions. Motor vehicles are responsible for just 20 percent.