The [dictatorial Bush Regime’s] 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 E.P.A. administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said the proposed California rules were pre-empted by federal authority and made moot by the energy bill signed into law by President Bush on Wednesday. Mr. Johnson said California had failed to make a compelling case that it needed authority to write its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks to help curb global warming.
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.”
“It’s a phony argument and ridiculous on its face,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
“I find this disgraceful,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who helped write the fuel-economy law. “The passage of the energy bill does not give the EPA a green light to shirk its responsibility to protect the health and safety of the American people from air pollution.”
It was the first time the EPA has flat-out denied a waiver request by California under the Clean Air Act. The law gives California special authority to set stronger standards because the state has a long history of smog and other air-quality problems.
But Johnson insisted the state’s request had not met the “extraordinary and compelling conditions” required under the act to grant a waiver.
California officials already had laid the groundwork to sue EPA, assuming weeks ago the agency would deny the request. State officials said they plan to file suit as soon as the ruling is published in the Federal Register in the next few weeks.”
The auto industry whining and crying and thumbsucking may have gotten the ear of the EPA but Europe is out to save itself from the obtuse self regard of the internal combustion crowd with promises of enormous fines as motivators.
European Union officials told leading automakers on Wednesday to make deep cuts in tailpipe emissions of the cars they produce or face fines that could reach billions of euros.
The European environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, said the industry’s decade-old promises to meet emissions reduction targets voluntarily had not yielded the desired results, making the tougher action necessary.