California Supreme Court upholds cap-and-trade law

The California Supreme Court refused to consider a challenge by business groups of the state's cap-and-trade law, a ruling that environmentalists hailed as ending a legal fight that had cast a cloud over the program. The state supreme court did not issue a written opinion on the program itself but declined take up the case on appeal from a lower court. California's program to cap emissions and trade carbon permits is a crucial component of a broader effort to reduce the state's output of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the end of the decade. The carbon market sets a steadily declining cap on the state's carbon output and then sells or gives permits that businesses are required to submit every three years to the state to cover their emissions.