EPA Says 17 States Can't Set Emission Rules

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday denied California and 16 other states the right to set their own standards for carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.

The decision immediately provoked a heated debate over its scientific basis and whether political pressure was applied by the automobile industry to help it escape the proposed California regulations. Officials from the states and numerous environmental groups vowed to sue to overturn the edict.

The 17 states — including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — had waited two years for the Bush administration to issue a ruling on an application to set stricter air quality standards than those adopted by the federal government. The decision, technically known as a Clean Air Act waiver, was the first time California was refused permission to impose its own pollution rules; the federal government had previously granted the state more than 50 waivers.
The emissions standards California proposed in 2004 — but never approved by the federal government — would have forced automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent in new cars and light trucks by 2016, with the cutbacks to begin in 2009 models.

The new federal law will require automakers to meet a 35-mile-per-gallon fleetwide standard for cars and trucks sold in the United States by 2020. It does not address carbon dioxide emissions, but such emissions would be reduced as cars were forced to become more fuel efficient.

Industry analysts and environmental groups said the E.P.A. decision had the appearance of a reward to the industry, in return for dropping its opposition to the energy legislation. Auto industry leaders issued statements supporting the new energy law, which gives them more time to improve fuel economy than California would have.

The California attorney general, Edmund G. Brown Jr., called the decision “absurd.”

These are excerpts from the New York Times article HERE.

Two years ago, California asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to pave the way for landmark standards to limit global warming from motor vehicles. Seventeen other states plan to implement the Clean Car standards, pending the EPA decision. But today - after two years of stalling - EPA said no. This decision is virtually unprecedented; EPA has granted similar requests over 50 times in 40 years. -- read full post here

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The Olive Ridley Crawl cause this "shameful".