Dec. 20

By denying California its long-sought, tailpipe emissions waiver, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson allowed the energy bill´s new national fuel economy standard to trump states´ attempts to set the miles-per-gallon bar even higher.

"Under this unified approach, the country will achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions," Johnson told reporters while announcing his ruling Wednesday night, just hours after President Bush signed an energy bill into law. "I believe this is a better approach than if individual states were to act alone."

Waiver advocates -- who anticipated Johnson´s rejection -- are vowing to fight the Environmental Protection Agency´s decision in court and on Capitol Hill. It is expected to shape climate change legislation, both chambers of Congress will broach next year.

"To hide behind the newly passed energy bill as an excuse flies in the face of the Supreme Court´s findings and the energy bill," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee. "This ill-advised denial turns its back on science, turns its back on fairness, turns its back on states´ rights and turns its backs on precedent."

Presidential approval of a federal energy bill should not constitute grounds for not granting a waiver, Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

Boxer had joined Schwarzenegger and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in pressuring Johnson to issue the waiver. Waxman said his Oversight and Government Reform Committee will investigate an EPA decision that "ignores the law, science and common sense."

Automakers, however, breathed a collective sigh of relief Wednesday night. They opposed the waiver, claiming that varying standards nationwide would increase costs and complicate vehicle fabrication.

"We commend EPA for protecting a national, 50-state program," said Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "Enhancing energy security and improving fuel economy are priorities to all automakers, but a patchwork quilt of inconsistent and competing fuel economy programs at the state level would only have created confusion, inefficiency and uncertainty for automakers and consumers."

California´s law requires that all its new cars, light trucks and sport utility vehicles reduce greenhouse gas emissions, beginning with model year 2009. Regulations allow a phased-in approach to achieve a 30 percent reduction in global warming emissions by 2016. Autos emit about one-third of the state´s heat-trapping gases.

Up to 17 states had vowed to follow California´s stricter emissions lead. On Nov. 8, 14 states joined California in a lawsuit state Attorney General Jerry Brown filed to force the EPA to act on the state´s 2005 waiver request for its clean cars law.

California´s law would have set fleet-wide fuel economy at 33.8 mpg by 2016, Johnson said. The energy bill calls for 35 mpg by 2020.

While the federal government sets national air pollution regulations, California is permitted to enact its own rules with EPA approval. The agency has granted more than 40 waiver requests to California in the last 30 years, according to counts gathered by environmental organizations.

This most-recent request was far different from others, Johnson said, pointing out that it didn´t meet the "compelling and extraordinary conditions" requirement of the Clean Air Act.

"California is not exclusive in facing the challenge of global climate change," Johnson said in clarifying his position. "Greenhouse gases harm the environment in California and elsewhere, regardless of where they begin."

Hopeful waiver advocates had drawn sustenance from two recent court decisions that put states´ need over those of automakers.

In a 57-page ruling from his Fresno office Dec. 12, U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Ishii rejected the auto industry´s claim that California´s regulations are invalid because fuel efficiency issues fall within federal jurisdiction. The judge paid special attention to an early April landmark Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, where justices declared that the agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases as pollutants.

A federal judge in Vermont issued a similar decision in mid-September on an auto-industry lawsuit that was essentially a duplicate of the California case.

"The court concludes that both EPA and California ... are equally empowered through the Clean Air Act to promulgate regulations that limit the emissions of greenhouse gases à. from motor vehicles," Ishii wrote.

Ishii called an increase in fuel economy "incidental" to the goal of California´s law--to assure protection of public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act. The judge specifically stated that even if the California law eventually leads to raising vehicle-fuel efficiency, it doesn´t directly affect such federal regulations.

"Given the level of impairment of human health and welfare that current climate science indicates may occur if human-generated greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, it would be the very definition of folly if EPA were precluded from action," Ishii wrote.

EPA´s waiver denial highlights serious public policy questions about the roles and responsibilities of various state and federal governmental agencies, said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

California officials disputed the EPA´s mpg arithmetic, emphasizing that vehicle efficiency is only one piece of a long-term strategy to reduce its carbon footprint.

"The energy bill does not reflect a vision, beyond 2020, to address climate change," Schwarzenegger said. "California´s vehicle greenhouse gas standards are part of a carefully designed, comprehensive program to fight climate change through 2050."]

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