Forwarded from Environmental Defense by Jane Clark


EPA decision to deny California's waiver request

"We have been waiting two years for EPA to decide on this waiver request.
Until today, EPA had granted all 50 previous waiver requests over the last
40 years."


Moments ago, the Environmental Protection Agency denied California's waiver
request to cut global warming pollution from automobiles.

Seventeen other states plan to implement similar programs. EPA's action
today is nothing more than a heavy handed stroke to limit the authority of
states to fight global warming and protect our environment.

This is the first time EPA has ever denied a waiver request under the Clean
Air Act. It is a major blow to our efforts to cut global warming pollution
from cars.  The administration is putting the brakes on state action to
address the global warming crisis.

Doing nothing about global warming is bad enough -- but going out of your
way to block the leaders who are trying to solve this is an outrage.

Three landmark court rulings earlier this year offered a clear legal path
for EPA to grant the waiver. In April, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon
dioxide is a pollutant covered under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA has
the clear obligation to protect Americans from global warming.

More recently, in separate cases, a federal judge in Vermont and another in
California rejected efforts by automakers to repeal the state emissions
laws. In these decisions, the judges made clear that states can pass laws
under the Clean Air Act to limit pollution from tailpipes, but left it to
EPA to grant a waiver allowing states to proceed.

The federal courts also dismissed automakers' claims that they did not have
the technology to meet such standards.

In his December ruling, California Judge Anthony Ishii wrote:

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.

We have been waiting two years for EPA to decide on this waiver request.
Until today, EPA had granted all 50 previous waiver requests over the last
40 years.

Fred Krupp
President, Environmental Defense

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