US senators urge EPA to allow California's tougher emissions rule

Washington (Platts)--31Mar2006

A tripartisan group of 21 US senators Friday asked the US Environmental
Protection Agency to grant without delay California's request for a waiver
from the Clean Air Act, which would allow the state to set its own vehicle
emission standards to combat global warming.

California and 10 other states -- Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington
-- have adopted new emissions standards for new vehicles that are tougher than
current Clean Air Act requirements. Those new standards, which would phase in
beginning in model year 2009 and ramp up over eight years, are estimated to
cut global warming emissions nearly 30% by model year 2016, according to the
senators.

California, and eventually the other states, will need the EPA to waive
the Clean Air Act to allow it to implement the stricter standards, something
the senators said the EPA has done more than 40 times over the past three
decades to allow California and other states to implement pollution-control
measures that are tighter than the federal government's.

"California's right to pioneer new vehicle emission standards is one that
EPA may interfere with only in very exceptional circumstances -- only if EPA
determines that waiver opponents meet a heavy burden of proving that the state
has not properly determined that its standards are needed and feasible," the
senators wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. "EPA has no
grounds for such interference now."

The senators' letter appears to be in response to a statement the Bush
administration included in the preamble of new rulemaking raising the fuel
economy standards for passenger trucks earlier this week. In it, the
Transportation Department said the federal fuel economy rules would trump any
state emission-control requirements, a contention that has been disputed by
the attorneys general of California and the 10 other states, who say fuel
economy standards and greenhouse gas emissions curbs are two distinct
categories of regulation. California's new emissions-control law is being
challenged in federal court by automakers.

The letter was signed by Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of
California, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Robert Menendez
of New Jersey, Jack Reid of Rhode Island, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey,
Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Joseph Leiberman and Christopher Dodd of
Connecticut, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Charles Schumer of New York, Edward
Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington.
Republicans signing the letter are Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine,
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and John McCain
of Arizona. Jim Jeffords, a Vermont Independent, also signed.

--Cathy Landry, cathy_landry@platts.com

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