Can Fresh Air Blow Away the Case Against Obama's Climate Policy?

Any regulation proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency follows a decades-long pattern. The activists squabble with the industrialists, pitting questions of business health against questions of public health. The squabbling plays out in newspapers and private lobbying meetings while the rules are drafted, and then it continues in court until somebody wins and somebody loses.

For America's biggest environmental law, however, economic health and public health haven't been locked in a zero-sum battle. The air is indisputably cleaner today, even after decades of economic growth. As the Obama administration tries to apply the Clean Air Act to a new environmental problem—climate change—it's worth wondering if past performance ever guarantees future results.