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Governor Schwarzenegger announces lawsuit against U.S. EPA for failing to act on California’s tailpipe emissions request

12th November 2007

Governor Schwarzenegger of California has announced that California has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to act on California’s tailpipe emissions waiver request. The Governor put the federal government on notice six months ago saying such a lawsuit would be filed if the U.S. EPA continued to delay action on California’s request for authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for cars and light trucks sold in the state.

Following the filing of California’s lawsuit against the U.S. EPA today, fourteen other U.S. states will be announcing that they are joining California in the lawsuit.

They include: Massachusetts, New York, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Under the Federal Clean Air Act, California has the right to set its own tougher-than-federal vehicle emission standards as long as it obtains a waiver from U.S. EPA. Over the past 30 years the U.S. EPA has granted California more than 40 such waivers, denying none.

The original request for a waiver of federal preemption of California's Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards was made by the California Air Resources Board (ARB) on December 21, 2005 after a llaw was passed that required California to establish new standards for motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions beginning in model year 2009. The CARB-adopted regulations will phase in and ramp up over eight years to cut greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles by nearly 30% by model year 2016.

By implementing these standards, California would be eliminating greenhouse gases equivalent to taking 6.5 million cars off the road by the year 2020. If all the other states with similar plans follow through, that figure would grow to nearly 22 million vehicles and would cut U.S. gasoline consumption by an estimated 11 billion gallons a year.

California’s request has been supported by recent judicial decisions. In September, a court decision in Vermont confirmed that states do have the ability to adopt California’s motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards. That decision came on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last April that the U.S. EPA has the authority (which it had contested) to regulate greenhouse gases.

States that have adopted, or are in the process of adopting, California’s vehicle emissions standards are: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Washington.

- As Governor Schwarzenegger acted on his threat to sue the EPA, U.S. House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi was reported to be pushing for a vote on energy legislation, including new vehicle emissions standards, on 16th November, before Congress’s Thanksgiving recess. Mrs Pelosi was reported by the Detroit News’ Washington correspondent to have won the commitment to work on emissions and energy legislation from Dearborn Congressman John Dingell, who had advocated as less stringent fuel economy standard than that of the Senate bill which Mrs Pelosi has supported, which calls for a 40% increase in fuel economy by 2020 to a combined 35 mpg for both cars and light trucks.

An alternative proposal backed by Ford, GM, Chrysler and Toyota called "Hill-Terry" retains separate and longer-term mpg targets for cars and light trucks, ranging between 32 mpg and 35 mpg by 2022.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration reportedly plans to issue its own proposed regulations on vehicle CO2 emissions by the end of the year, through joint regulations issued by the EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

(California government, Detroit News, 9 November)

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