Puzzler: After the D.C. Circuit court explicitly said that they didn't "re-weigh the scientific evidence before EPA and reach our own conclusion", English major Chris Mooney suggests that they subjected "denier" claims to "serious and careful intellectual scrutiny"

Chris Mooney | A Court's Scientific Smackdown: The D.C. Circuit Trashes Science Deniers on Global Warming and the EPA

What the D.C. Circuit opinion does, basically, is to show that EPA is absolutely right to trust the experts, and to ignore the deniers, in deciding what the science of global warming says. That makes the D.C. Circuit opinion a resounding defense of science and its relevance to policy—in many ways on a par with other such legal classics, like Judge Jones’ decision in the Dover evolution trial.

...Heh. Science deniers, as we know, are capable of arguing anything, due to the power of motivated reasoning—which, essentially, makes you act like a lawyer rather than a scientist. That includes engaging in all manner of "semantic tricks." But outside observers who aren’t so motivated—which courts ought to be—tend to see right through it. So this smackdown is richly deserved.

...And so, once again, when climate denier claims are subjected to serious and careful intellectual scrutiny—rather than handled carelessly in the media—they flop big time.