Apr 24 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Edwin Garcia San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top air pollution regulator Wednesday denounced the federal government's proposal to demand higher fuel efficiency in new cars because a 24-word passage written into the Bush administration's 417-page plan would block California's aggressive efforts to enact its own emissions standards.

"Unfortunately, buried within that decision, was a small paragraph, which is like a buried time bomb ticking away, and aimed directly at the heart of the nation's efforts to control our contributions to global warming," said Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board.

"The reality of what is now being proposed by the federal government," Nichols said, "is that there is an effort under way once again to prevent any state, and particularly California, from exercising our sovereign right to control emissions of air pollutants into the environment."

The latest attempt by the federal government to pre-empt California from enforcing its own laws to combat global warming was seen as another slap at the Schwarzenegger administration, which is dueling with the Bush administration over the state's authority to regulate tailpipe emissions.

Nichols, speaking at a Capitol news conference flanked by environmental advocates, was responding to Tuesday's announcement by the federal Department of Transportation, which proposed that all new cars and trucks meet a collective average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

The DOT announcement came four months after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency turned down a bid by California to set more stringent standards.

The proposed regulation, which resulted from a federal energy bill signed by President Bush in December, promises to curtail carbon dioxide emissions from cars and light trucks and reduce America's reliance on foreign oil.

Nichols and the advocates at first cheered the proposal -- until they came across page 378, which says that states cannot set their own standards.

"Unfortunately, the proposal from the president takes an arrow out of the quiver of our attempt to fight and to reduce the worse impacts of global warming," said Dan Jacobson of Environment California.

"We'll make real progress if the Bush administration would just move out of the way," said Ann Notthoff, California advocacy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

California sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in January after it rejected the state's 2005 request for a rule waiver to enact its own tailpipe emissions standards. Nineteen other states had agreed to adopt California's standards if had the EPA approved the waiver. Many of those states joined California in its lawsuit.

If the proposed rule announced this week goes into effect, Nichols said, the state would file another lawsuit.

Contact Edwin Garcia at egarcia@mercurynews.com or (916) 441-4651.